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and Work in Medieval Europe 
Pa Fifth to Fifteenth Centuries) ; 
ae Bt 
ie a 


The History of Civilization : 


Edited by C. K. OcapEN, M.A. 
Harry ELMerR Barnes, Ph.D., Consulting American Editor. 


The volumes already published are: 


*SOCIAL ORGANIZATION . : ; ‘ . W. H. R. Rivers, F.R.S. 
*A THOUSAND YEARS OF THE TARTARS . . . Professor E. H. Parker 
*THE THRESHOLD OF THE PACIFIC Z : “ Dr. C. E. Fox 
THE EARTH BEFORE HISTORY . ‘4 - . Edmond Perrier 
PREHISTORIC MAN . , : : : Jacques de Morgan 
LANGUAGE é ; Dieet 8 : ; Professor J. Vendryes 
*HIsTORY AND LITERATURE OF CHRISTIANITY . . Professor P. de Labriolle 
*CHINA AND EUROPE F : , : : Adolf Reichwein 
*LONDON LIFE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . : M. Dorothy George 
A GEOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION TO HisToRY . . Professor Lucien Febvre 
*THE DAWN OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION : V. Gordon Childe, B.Litt. 
MESOPOTAMIA: BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION. Professor L. Delaporte ; 
THE AXGEAN CIVILIZATION ‘ ‘ a -. Professor Gustave Glotz 
*THE PEOPLES OF ASIA . P ‘ : : L. H. Dudley Buxton 
*THE MIGRATION OF SYMBOLS . “ ‘ Donald A. Mackenzie 
*TRAVEL AND TRAVELLERS OF THE MIDDLE Vas Edited by Prof. A. P. Newton 
¥*CIVILIZATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN INDIANS : Rafael Karsten 
Race AND HISTORY f 2 : : : Professor E. Pittard 
From TRIBE To EMPIRE ‘ s ; 3 Professor A. Moret 
*A History OF WITCHCRAFT . : . ; Montague Summers 
*A History OF MEDICINE ; : : 3 C. G. Cumston, M.D, 
*ANCIENT GREECE AT WORK : ! : : Professor G. Glotz 
THE FORMATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE * : Professor A. Jardé 
*THE ARYANS ‘ : : 4 : V. Gordon Childe, B.Litt. 
PRIMITIVE ITALY. ‘ : s 5 . Professor Léon Homo 
RoME THE LAW-GIVER . ‘ : r . Professor J. Declareuil 
THE ROMAN SPIRIT : ; - : : Professor A. Grenier 
*LIFE AND WORK IN MODERN EUROPE . ° . Professor G. Renard 
*LIFE AND WorRK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE ‘ Professor P. Boissonnade 
*THE LIFE OF BUDDHA . : ‘ 4 . E.H. Thomas, D.Litt. 


In preparation : 


ANCIENT PERSIA AND IRANIAN CIVILIZATION ; ; Professor C. Huart 
*ANCIENT ROME AT WORK : : ‘ Paul Louis 
ART IN GREECE ‘ . : t A. de Ridder and W. Deonna 
*THE GEOGRAPHY OF WITCHCRAFT : : Montague Summers 
THE NILE AND EGYPTIAN CIVILIZATION ; ‘ Professor A. Moret 
*THE DIFFUSION OF CULTURE  . ; - Professor G. Elliot Smith 


* An asterisk denotes that the volume does not form part of the French collection “TL Evolution 
de ? Humanité.”’ 


A complete classified list of the Serres will be found at the end of this volume. 


PLATE | 


san 


i 
' 


THE LORD OF THE MANOR 


(Early 16th Century) 


front. 


Life and Work in 
Medieval Europe 


(fifth to Fifteenth Centuries) 


By 
P. BOISSONNADE 


Professor at the University of Poitiers, and Corresponding Member 
of the Institute 


Translated, with an Introduction, by 


EILEEN POWER, M.A., Lrr.D. 


Reader in Medieval Economic History in the University of London 


NEW YORK 
ALFRED A. KNOPF 


a ae) 


CONTENTS 


FOREWORD . a is L : 3 2 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE = = = “ ~ = 


BOOK I: LABOUR IN CHRISTIAN EUROPE DURING 
THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. THE INVASIONS; 
THE WORK OF DESTRUCTION AND ATTEMPTS 
AT RECONSTRUCTION, FIFTH TO TENTH CEN- 
TURIES 


CHAPTER 
I. Roman Europe AND BARBARIAN EUROPE IN THE EarRLy Dark 
AGES. THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION OF THE 
INVADERS - - - - - ~ - 
The Roman Empire at the close of the fourth century, 
superiority of its organisation. The Barbarian World; 
Uralo-Celtic and Slav races, their economic and social 
organisation, their réle; the Germans, their social and 
economic condition in the fifth century, their role. 


Il. THe INVASIONS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BARBARIAN 
KINGDOMS IN CHRISTIAN EuroreE. RUIN OF THE SOCIAL AND 
Economic R&GIME OF RoME (FirTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES) 


Infiltration of Barbarians into the Empire; character of 
the Invasions ; settlements of the barbarians. Results 
of the establishment of barbarian kingdoms; their work 
of destruction and economic and social retrogression. 


III. Tae East Roman Empire AND THE Economic AND SOCIAL 
RECONSTRUCTION OF EASTERN EUROPE FROM THE FIFTH TO 
THE TENTH CENTURIES. COLONISATION AND AGRICULTURAL 
PropucTion. ‘THE DIVISION OF PROPERTY AND RURAL 
CLASSES IN EASTERN EUROPE - - - - “ 


The superior organisation of the Byzantine Empire; 
colonisation and the development of agricultural pro- 
duction. The distribution of landed property; domains 
of the state, the Church, and the aristocracy. Forma- 
tion and progress of the power of the Byzantine aristo- 
cracy. Medium-sized and small free properties in the 
Fiast and the class of small landowners. The dependent 
agricultural classes; disappearance of a wage-earning 
class and of free tenant farming (fermage) and métayage ; 
abolition of slavery ; diffusion of the colonate and evolution 
of serfdom. 
Vv 


PAGE 


14 


32 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
IV. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN 
EMPIRE DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES~ - - - 

Persistence of urban economy and industrial activity in 
the East. Organisation of urban corporations and 
crafts. Varieties of industrial production in the 
Byzantine Empire. Organisation and world supremacy 
of Byzantine commerce. Activity and prosperity of 
urban life in the Byzantine Empire. 


V. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE CIVILISATION 
IN East AND WEST - ~ - - - - 
The influence of Byzantium in Italy, and in the 
Roumanian and South Slav lands. Influence on the 
Bulgars. The part played by Byzantine civilisation in 
Varangian Russia. The work of Byzantium in the 
history of labour. 


VI. THe Work oF CHURCH AND STATE IN THE REORGANISATION 
or LABOUR AND IN THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESTORATION OF 
WESTERN CHRISTENDOM DURING THE DARK AGES ~ = 

Attempts to reconstitute the state in the West; political 
and economic policy of the princes. Part played by the 
Church in the economic renaissance of the Carolingian 
age. 


VII. THe AGRARIAN ECONOMY OF WESTERN CHRISTENDOM. THE 
First ATTEMPT AT COLONISATION. AGRICULTURAL PRO- 
DUCTION AND REPOPULATION FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE 
TENTH CENTURIES~ - ~ - - ~ - 

The promoters; methods and work of colonisation. 
Persistence of a primitive agrarian economy; waste 
lands, forests, pastoral cultivation; slight progress in 
the superior forms of cultivation, cereals, arboriculture, 
vine-growing, industrial crops. Partial renaissance of 
agricultural production and repopulation of the land. 


VIII. EvoLuTion OF THE REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 
FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE TENTH CENTURIES : THE DECLINE 
OF THE OLD ForMs or LAND OWNERSHIP. THE PROGRESS OF 
THE GREAT Domains. 'THE ATTACK ON SMALL PROPERTIES 
AND THE CLASS OF FREEMEN - - ota - - 

Decline of collective and family ownership and progress 
of individual ownership. Predominance of large pro- 
perties in royal, ecclesiastical or aristocratic hands. 
Formation of a landed nobility, the system of vassalage 
and benefices. The great domain of the West and its 
organisation during the early Middle Ages. Decline of 


small ownership and of free classes and free labour in 
the West. 


IX. DePENDENT RuRAL CLASSES IN THE WEST, THEIR ECONOMIC 
AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION AND THEIR GENERAL CONDITION 
(SEVENTH TO TENTH CENTURIES) - - - - 

Day labourers, métayers and tenant-farmers (fermiers) ; 
the hétes and the dependent free tenants. The class of 


v1 


PAGE 


46 


57 


62 


67 


78 


90 


\ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
coloni in the West. Disappearance and transformation 
of slavery. Formation and extension of serfdom 
attached to the soil. Material and moral life of the 
rural classes in the West from the seventh to the tenth 
centuries. 


X. INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE IN THE WEST DURING 
THE LAST CENTURIES OF THE DarRK AGES. PARTIAL RENAIS- 
SANCE OF AN URBAN ECONOMY * * = ® 


Characteristics of industry at this period; family 
industry and industry on the great domains. Organisa- 
tion of monastic workshops. Disappearance and 
survivals of the class of urban artisans. Industrial pro- 
duction, its varieties and comparative unimportance. 
Renaissance of commerce in the West in the Caro- 
lingian age; characteristics of this commerce; com- 
mercial currents. The first renaissance of urban life, 
its unevenness ; urban populations; aspect and character 
of urban centres. 

The last invasions and the achievements of the Dark 
Ages in the history of labour. 


BOOK II: THE RESTORATION, EMANCIPATION, 
ACHIEVEMENTS AND APOGEE OF LABOUR 
IN CHRISTIAN EUROPE FROM THE MIDDLE OF 
THE TENTH TO THE MIDDLE OF THE FOUR- 
TEENTH CENTURY 


I. THe FeupAL REGIME IN THE WEST; THE RULING CLASSES 
AND THE OWNERSHIP OF THE SOIL - = = ss 


Political, social and economic foundations of the feudal 
régime in Europe. Forms of ownership of the soil; 
diminution of collective property and decline of small 
free ownership. The great ecclesiastical properties. 
Domains of sovereign princes ; seigneurial domains and 
lands of the nobility ; subdivision into fiefs. The great 
domain of the feudal period, its organisation and break 
up into tenant’s holdings. 


II. Economic AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF THE RurRAL Dis- 
TRICTS OF THE WEST DURING THE EARLY FEUDAL PERIOD - 


Different classes of peasants; the free villeins, their 
lands, obligations and rights. The servile villeins; 
serfdom becomes general; classes of serfs and their 
obligations. Hard conditions of peasant life under the 
feudal régime. Backward state of agricultural 
economy at this period. Advantages and precarious 
condition of the peasants. Villein life during the early 
feudal period; the spirit of revolt. 


III. PART PLAYED BY CHURCH AND STATE IN THE TRANSFORMA- 
TION OF THE REGIME OF PRODUCTION - - = - 


Bad organisation of feudal government and its in- 
fluence on the condition of the mass of the workers. 


vii 


PAGE 


102 


119 


132 


150 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
Influence of the new feudal governments and cen- 
tralised monarchies upon labour. Influence of the 
Western Church upon labour. 


IV. Tue APPEARANCE OF A MONEY ECONOMY AND THE DEVELOP- 
MENT OF WESTERN COMMERCE FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE 
TENTH TO THE MIDDLE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY - - 159 


Unimportant part played by a money economy in the 
early feudal period. The renaissance of commerce and 
its causes; forms of commercial organisation; large- 
scale international commerce and great mercantile 
associations. The restoration of means of transport; 
increase in the use of money and credit; development 
of markets and fairs. Rise of maritime commerce; 
predominance and prosperity of Mediterranean trade; 
progress of trade in Western and Central Europe; the 
commercial powers. Effects of the commercial revolu- 
tion. 


V. Tue RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY IN WESTERN CHRISTENDOM 
DURING THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD - = F779 


Industry during the early feudal period. Causes and 
characteristics of the industrial renaissance in the 
West. Chief forms of industry in the golden age of the 
medieval period. Small-scale industry. First manifest- 
ations of the great industry. Wide scope of industrial 
development in the West from the eleventh century ; 
mineral, metallurgical and textile industries; wood, 
earthenware and glass industries; art industries. Re- 
sults of this renaissance. 


VI. EMANCIPATION OF THE COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL 
CLASSES, THEIR PART IN THE URBAN RENAISSANCE OF THE 
ELEVENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES IN THE WEST - 191 


The renaissance of towns from the eleventh to the four- 
teenth century; formation and early progress of the 
commercial and industrial classes (tenth to eleventh 
centuries). Movement of the emancipation of these 
classes (eleventh to thirteenth centuries). Character, 
extent and limits of this movement. Civil and economic 
liberties of the urban classes. Diversity of their 
political rights. Predominance of economic preoccupa- 
tions and interests in the urban state. Economic 
powers of the urban community. Results of emancipa- 
tion and influence of urban economy. 


VII. ORGANISATION AND CONDITION OF THE COMMERCIAL AND 
INDUSTRIAL CLASSES IN THE WEST FROM THE ELEVENTH TO 
THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES - - - = - 205 


Formation, composition and power of the patriciate 
and the gild merchant; their work in the towns. 
Economic and social tyranny of the burgess patriciate, 
its ostentation and arrogance. Origins, formation and 
development of the free crafts and sworn corporations. 
Organisation of free and sworn crafts; masters and 


vill 


CHAFTER 


CONTENTS 


journeymen; apprenticeship; administration of the 
crafts, their privileges, monopolies and regulations ; 
characteristics and effects of this régime. The conquest 
of power by the urban masses and the democratic and 
syndicalist revolution in the West (thirteenth century 
to first half of fourteenth century). Material condition 
of the commercial and industrial classes; work and 
wages; material existence and moral state of these 
classes. Results of this transformation. 


VIII. THe ADVANCE OF COLONISATION AND AGRICULTURAL PRO- 
DUCTION AND THE PROGRESS OF RURAL POPULATION IN THE 
WEST FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES - 


IX. CHANGES IN THE 


The great work of colonisation, its promoters, authors 
and methods. Defensive works against water and 
works of drainage and irrigation. The work of clear- 
ance in the West. Development of agricultural pro- 
duction, forests, fisheries and silviculture; progress of 
stock raising. Advance in methods of cultivation: 
cereals, horticulture, arboriculture, vine-growing, in- 
dustrial crops. Results of colonisation ; agricultural 
prosperity and the progress of rural population. 


VALUE AND DISTRIBUTION OF LANDED 


PROPERTY AND EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES IN THE 
WEST FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES - 


The rise in the value of property, landed revenue and 
agricultural produce. Renewed decline of collective 
property. Crisis in the history of seigneurial property. 
Reconstitution of state domains. Accession of the com- 
munes and the urban bourgeoisie to rural landed 
property. Movement towards the emancipation of the 
rural classes, its causes, character and variety. The 
liberties or franchises of the emancipated rural classes. 
Results of their emancipation. 


X. ORGANISATION AND CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES IN THE 
WEST FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES 


Formation of a rural third estate and a class of small 
peasant properties. Censitaires and copyholders, their 
condition in the West from the twelfth century. 
Characteristics of peasant property, its small size 
and constant subdivision. The new classes of farmers, 
fermiers and métayers; formation of a class of agri- 
cultural wage-earners, day labourers and servants in 
husbandry. Survivals of serfdom and slavery. Im- 
provement in the material condition of the peasantry ; 
income from land and wages. The increase in comfort; 
eapesnens of material and moral life in the country 
side. 


XI, Enp oF THE ECONOMIC SUPREMACY OF BYZANTIUM IN THE 


EAST. 


THe R&GIME OF LABOUR AND ITS EVOLUTION IN THE 


SLtAv, Macyar, ROUMANIAN AND SCANDINAVIAN STATES 
(ELEVENTH TO FOURTEENTH CENTURIES) - - 


Decline of the Byzantine Empire; progress of feudalism 
and of large properties. Decline of small free owner- 


1X 


PAGE 


226 


239 


252 


264 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

ship and extension of serfdom. Decline of the bour- 
geoisie and of urban economy. The revival of Eastern 
Europe under the civilising action of Byzantium and 
the West; its economic and social transformation. 
Economic and social conditions in Scandinavia in the 
tenth century. Influence of Western civilisation on the 
Scandinavian States; their economic and social trans- 
formation. 


BOOK III: THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES, BIRTH 
OF CAPITALISM AND A NATIONAL ECONOMY. 
THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTIONS (1340-1453) 


I. Tue PouiricaAL, SocIAL AND DEMOGRAPHICAL DISTURBANCES 
AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE BIRTH OF A 
NATIONAL Economy (1840-1453) - - - - 279 


Crisis in the political and social history of Europe at 
the close of the Middle Ages. National economy and 
the monarchical state; growing intervention of the 
state in the field of labour. Population crisis in 
Europe, its causes and effects. ; 


II. TRANSFORMATION AND PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND IN- 
DUSTRY IN EUROPE AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES - 886 


Progress of commercial organisation. Progress of 
maritime commerce in the Levant, the Mediterranean 
and the West. The great commercial powers. Indus- 
trial evolution and its forms at the close of the Middle 
Ages. Specialisation of industrial work and technical 
progress. Development of various industries. 


III. CHANGES IN THE ORGANISATION OF THE COMMERCIAL AND 
INDUSTRIAL CLASSES; THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS AND PRO- 
GRESS OF THE TOWNS AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES - 299 


Progress of the capitalist bourgeoisie. Preponderance 
of the middle and smaller bourgeoisie, and of small- 
scale industry and trade in the towns. Preponderance 
of small free crafts. Development of sworn corpora- 
tions. Changes in the spirit of the gild régime. 
Antagonism and separation of masters and workmen. 
Journeymen’s societies and workers’ fraternities. 
Elements in the urban proletariat. The wage-earners 
of the great industry; wandering workmen; un- 
employed and beggars. Condition of the mass of the 
urban classes; the rise in wages. Urban revolutions at 
the close of the Middle Ages and attempts to win power 
by the working classes. Extension of princely power 
over the towns and urban revolutions against arbitrary 
monarchical government. The growth of the towns and 
brilliance of urban civilisation. 


x 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


IV. THe VICISSITUDES OF COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURAL 


PRODUCTION. 


CHANGES IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF LANDED 


PROPERTY AND IN THE CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES AT 
THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES; THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


Progress of colonisation and agricultural production. 
Variations in the value and distribution of landed 
property. Large and small ownership. Increase in the 
number of small peasant proprietors and small rural 
properties. Varying conditions of the censitaires. 
Growth of fermage, métayage and the agricultural 
wage-earning class in the West. Birth of a rural pro- 
letariat. Revival of serfdom and slavery in Europe. 
The agrarian revolutions in Europe. Peasants’ revolts 
in France, Spain, the Netherlands, England, Bohemia 
Germany and Scandinavia. Diversity in the material 
condition of the rural classes at the close of the 
Middle Ages. 


GENERAL CONCLUSION - = 2 " = 


BIBLIOGRAPHY - = * . Bs Ms 


INDEX 


Xl 


PAGE 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


{From a Calendar by a Flemish artist, Simon Benninck. 
Victoria and Albert Museum. Early sixteenth century. ] 


I. THe Lorp or THE MANoR - - = Frontispiece 


FACING PAGE 


II. GENOESE BANKERS oa a = X 


[From Addit. MS. 27695, f. 8, British Museum. (De 
septem vitiis.) Probably by the famous Genoese 
miniaturist of the family of Cybo, known as the Monk 
of Hyéres. Late fourteenth century. | 


III. Guass MAKING - = s os a 


[From Addit. MS. 24189, f. 16, British Museum, a book 
of drawings illustrating the travels of Sir John Mande- 
ville by a Flemish or German artist. Fifteenth 
century. | 


IV. May Day 1n A FLEMISH Town - » = 


[From the Calendar of Simon Benninck. As above. ] 


V. PLOUGHING, SOWING AND HARROWING~ - - 


[From the Calendar of Simon Benninck. As above. ] 


VI. JAcquEs Cmur’s SHIP) - % és & 


[From a stained glass window formerly in the Hotel 
Cujas and now in the Musée at Bourges. Fifteenth 
century. ] 


VII. Tue Hore pE VILLE AT YPRES - é 4, 


[From a photograph taken before the Great War. ] 


VIII. Harvest ~ ee . s 2 


[From the Calendar of Simon Benninck. As above.] 


xiii 


166 


188 


224 


232 


300 


314 


822 


FOREWORD 


SINCE the appearance of Cunningham’s short sketch of 
Western Civilisation in its Economic Aspects (Cambridge, 
1908) no study of European economic development as a 
whole during the Middle Ages has appeared in the English 
language, although an increasing amount of work, both 
learned and popular, dealing with English economic history 
is published every year. Yet it is perhaps even more un- 
suitable thus to isolate English economic history in the 
Middle Ages than it is to isolate it in the modern period, 
for during the greater part of the ten centuries which lay 
between the Barbarian Invasions and the Renaissance 
national divisions were but faintly marked, and Western 
Europe was in some degree an economic unity. Moreover, 
to study the history of England alone gives a very imperfect 
picture of the main lines of development, for England 
throughout the medieval and, indeed, well into the modern 
period was on an economic backwater. Just as the centre 
of religion was Rome and the centre of civilisation France, so 
the commercial centres of Christendom were first Byzantium, 
and then Italy, Germany, and the towns of Central France 
and the Netherlands. Italy monopolised the rich trade with 
the Levant, and Germany the great south European trade 
routes and the Baltic and North Seas. The clearing houses 
for these two streams of commerce were the Champagne fairs 
and the cities of the Netherlands, especially Bruges, where 
land and sea routes met. England lay rather off the main 
stream, though in a good position to swim into it; she awoke 
but slowly to a sense of her own future upon the waters, and 
in the early Middle Ages no one would have foreseen 
in her the future sea power par excellence, although in the 
last two centuries of the period she was rapidly advancing, 
and in the fifteenth century was a dangerous rival to the 
Hansards in the Baltic. Similarly, in the Middle Ages no 
one would have foreseen in England a leading industrial 
power, for again Italy, the Netherlands, and certain parts of 
Germany were the industrial centres of the West, and Eng- 
XV 


FOREWORD 


land was important only as an exporter of raw materials, 
and in particular of wool. Here, too, she made rapid strides 
in the later Middle Ages, and by the end of the fourteenth 
century was beginning to oust the cloth cities of the Nether- 
lands from their leadership. But for the greater part of the 
period she was a client nation and not a leading commercial 
or. industrial power, and no true appreciation of medieval 
economic progress is to be gained by studying England alone. 

There are innumerable other considerations which lend a 
peculiar interest to the study of European economic history 
in the Middle Ages. Some of its greatest achievements have 
too often been swamped by the more spectacular events 
of political and cultural history, by crusades, chivalry, 
cathedrals, and the development of the art of government. 
Of these achievements the greatest was that stupendous 
work of the colonisation and population of Europe in which 
kings, landlords, capitalists, and pioneer peasants all played 
their part. Hardly less important was the rise of vast 
labouring classes from conditions of dependence to com- 
parative freedom. It serves also to demonstrate (what the 
study of English history conceals) the early development of | 
certain phenomena which are sometimes described as 
modern, such as the capitalist entrepreneur and the strikes, 
unions, and other manifestations of a fierce struggle between 
labour and capital. The Netherlands was the Black Country 
of the Middle Ages, and although not very black, it displays 
on a small scale all the characteristics of the modern ‘* great 
industry.’’ Similarly, a study of medieval history shows the 
early evolution of a banking and credit system, in particular 
by the merchant-financiers of Italy, which the man-in-the- ~ 
street is apt to attribute to a much later period. 

Professor Boissonnade’s book is one of those excellent 
cuvres de vulgarisation of which the French alone appear 
to have the secret. The present translation is offered the 
public in the hope that it may provide a useful textbook for 
students, both in England and in America, who are study- 
ing the subject as part of a University course, and give to the 
general reader with an interest in social history, an apercu 
of European development during the Middle Ages, such as 
he cannot easily obtain in his own language elsewhere. The 

period is sown with difficulties and problems upon which 
Xv1 


FOREWORD 


scholars still hold divergent views. Some might, for in- 
stance, contend, in view of the brilliant researches of Pro- 
fessor Dopsch, that Professor Boissonnade attaches too 
much importance to the destructive effects of the Barbarian 
Invasions. But where matters are still in controversy every 
scholar must have the right to his own opinion, and upon 
the main lines of European economic development there is 
small doubt. The reader will find here traced the great work 
of colonisation and clearance, the development of landhold- 
ing from the evolution of the great feudal estate cultivated 
by dependent labour to its gradual morcellement into the 
small properties of peasant proprietors, censitaires, and 
tenant farmers with various leases. Professor Boissonnade 
sets forth the rise and efflorescence of urban civilisation, the 
development of industry under the regulation of small crafts 
or of great capitalist entrepreneurs, and the emergence of a 
‘* capital and labour problem.’’ He traces the evolution of 
a large body of wage labourers in both town and country, 
the development of technical skill and invention in industry 
and agriculture, and the rise and increasing elaboration of 
international commerce and finance. He makes clear the 
economic function of Byzantium, as well as the work of the 
new nations of the West, and in fine covers the whole of 
the crucial period between the break-up of the Roman Empire 
‘in the West and the advent of the modern world, a period 
which is, as he justly points out, one of capital importance 
in the history of civilisation and of labour. 


EILEEN POWER. 


XVll 


AUTHOR’S PREFACE 


In this essay, founded upon long years of research, and 
upon direct acquaintanceship with a large number of 
documents, monographs, and special and general works, 
in French and in various other languages, an attempt has 
been made to construct the first complete, ordered, and pre- 
cise synthesis of the evolution of labour in Christian Europe 
during the Middle Ages. It has been sought not only to set 
out the variations in the legal status of persons and of lands, 
to which subject alone the majority of historians have 
usually confined themselves, but above all to set the working 
classes in the historical framework in which they lived, to 
trace the reciprocal action of political and social institutions, 
of exchange, of industrial and agricultural production, of 
the colonisation of the soil, of the distribution of landed 
and movable wealth, upon those economic transformations, 
which brought about the appearance of new forms of labour 
and which gave to the masses a place in society which they 
had never hitherto occupied. Thus the Middle Ages will 
appear in this study in their real aspect, no longer as an 
empty and gloomy gulf between two epochs full of life and 
light, antiquity and the modern age, but as one of the most 
brilliant and fruitful periods of the historic past, a period 
wherein labour took one of its most decisive steps forward in 
the direction of well-being, justice, and liberty. 


xix 


ae 


LIFE AND WORK 
IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


BOOK I 


CHAPTER I 


ROMAN EUROPE AND BARBARIAN EUROPE IN THE EARLY DARK AGES.—THE 
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION OF THE INVADERS. 


Witn the fifth century there begins a long period of a » 
thousand years known as the Middle Ages, in the course of 
which were accomplished some of the greatest social and 
economic changes in the whole history of labour. It begins 
with a catastrophe: the collapse of the Roman Empire as a 
result of the invasion and settlement of barbarian peoples. 
No one could have foreseen this disaster, which was of 
capital importance in history, because it very nearly 
brought about the complete destruction of civilization. 
Happily for the new world which was to spring from the 
ruins of the old, the good order established by Rome never 
entirely died out, and it was upon the solid foundation 
of what remained that the new states of the early Middle 
Ages were destined to rear themselves. 

Formed of a conglomeration of lands which stretched over 
three million square kilometres, the Roman Empire still 
occupied at the beginning of this period about a quarter of the 
European continent, comprising all the most fertile regions : 
to wit, Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, and the Balkan and 
Danube lands, which formed the prefectures of the East 
and of Illyria; and in the west, Italy and its islands, 
Spain, the Gallic provinces, and Great Britain, which con- 
stituted two more prefectures. The whole was divided into 
nine dioceses, seventy-one provinces, and over two hundred 
territories or ‘‘ cities.”? The empire was bounded in the 
north by the Danube and the Rhine, and in the British Isles 
by the line of the Forth and Clyde. Beyond it barbarism 

B 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


still reigned over three-quarters of the European continent. 
In the domain of civilization this empire, which had lately 
embraced Christianity, and with it the call to a higher 
morality, had realized a progress as great as any ever 
accomplished by the human race. It had for the first time 
set up a government which curbed the will of the individual 
beneath the rule of law, and brought about the triumph 
of political unity and authority over the anarchy of the 
ancient city state. It had created the first great political 
association, formed of several millions of freemen, ‘* brothers 
and cousins of the Roman people,’’ who all, since the 
second century, had enjoyed equal rights, obeyed the 
same laws, exercised the same civil liberties, and who 
were protected by an equitable justice against any superior 
power other than the state. It had even, under the influence 
of the generous ideas of Stoicism and of Christianity, risen 
to a conception of the brotherhood of man and of a human 
society formed of all civilized peoples. It had brought with 
it everywhere the reign of order and of peace, and assured 
the safety of the peoples over whom it ruled. Thus it had 
accomplished a marvellous work of social and economic 
progress, the effects of which had hardly re at all 
in the period of the later empire. 

Everywhere social life had flourished and was still flourish- 
ing in the fourth century, more especially in urban surround- 
ings. Hundreds of towns were living an easy and pleasant 
existence, adorned with palaces, with public squares, 
circuses, theatres, temples, hot springs, money markets or 
basilicas, with their public baths and their aqueducts. From 
the third century they had been protected by fortified walls, 
crowned with towers. Amid the unexampled magnificence 
of the capitals, Byzantium, Rome, Milan, Thessalonica, 
Treier, and Arles, all the splendours of luxury and of civiliza- 
tion were displayed. The countryside was covered with 
townships (vici) of little free proprietors and with the 
elegant dwellings, half pleasure-houses and half strongholds, 
in which the great proprietors lived in the summer season, 
in the midst of their vast domains (villae). In spite of the 
slow depopulation, which for the last century and a half 
had been draining away its life-blood, the empire in Europe 
had a population of over thirty millions, and was the envy 

‘ 2 


ROMAN AND BARBARIAN EUROPE 


of the barbarians who surrounded it. Although the structure 
of Roman society had remained aristocratic, the upper 
classes did not form closed castes; any citizen might rise 
to the front rank through merit, fortune, or the exercise of 
public functions. The existence of a still numerous middle 
class of small landed proprietors, merchants, and artisans, 
who were known as mediocres or honorati, served to main- * 
tain a sort of social equilibrium, which the central power 
was at pains to preserve at the expense of the nobility, the 
large owners, and the high officials. In town and country 
the free labour of artisans, tenant-farmers in perpetuity and 
day labourers, maintained itself side by side with the semi- 
dependent labour of the workers in the state workshops and 
the coloni on the great estates. The class of independent 
artisans and its corporations (collegia) were recognized and 
respected; they figured in the official hierarchy, together 
with the commercial class of merchants (mercatores), which 
was organized on the same model. Although the empire 
suffered from the existence of a lazy and wretched urban 
proletariat, from the growth of pauperism, and from the 
harshness of the régime imposed upon the poor and the lower 
classes, progress of capital importance had been accomplished 
in two directions. Under the influence of Stoic and Christian 
conceptions, and still more under the pressure of economic 
needs, slavery, that degrading and unproductive form of 
labour, had almost entirely disappeared in favour of free 
artisans in the towns and coloni in the country districts. 
A great mass of men had attained, if not complete freedom, 
at least a semi-freedom. The colonate had become the 
normal condition of the rural population, preparing the way 
for medieval villeinage. Its numbers were increased in the 
fourth century by a crowd of new elements from the towns, 
and it gave to the cultivators of the soil the rights of Roman 
citizens, personal liberty, the usufruct of the land, and a 
secure and stable existence. 

In spite of the economic crisis brought about by the 
invasions of the third century and the excessive imperial 
taxation, Roman Europe was none the less, at the beginning 
of the fifth century, in possession of a greater degree of 
material prosperity than any other part of the world. If 
certain countries, such as Greece and peninsular Italy, had 

3 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


been sorely assailed by depopulation, war, and economic 
changes, many other regions provided a picture of fertility, 
comfort, and well-being which was unmatched; such was 
notably the case in Macedonia, Thrace, Dalmatia, Northern 
Italy, Spain, Gaul, and Britain. Ammianus Marcellinus 
observes that in whole provinces, such as Aquitania, poverty © 
was almost unknown. In four centuries Rome had succeeded 
in transforming the part of Europe which lay beneath her 
law into a hive of productive activity. She had transformed 
even its outward aspect; forests had been cleared, marshes 
drained, the land cultivated. The plough and the spade 
triumphed over wild nature; cattle-breeding, corn-growing, 
the cultivation of industrial plants, fruit-trees, vines, and 
olives were developed to an extraordinary extent, while the 
field of Roman colonization grew ever wider. Industrial 
production outgrew all the results hitherto obtained, as well 
in the domain of minerals and metallurgy as in those of 
weaving, leather, earthenware, and glass. Division of labour 
had begun. The small urban industry of the workshops had 
grown up and prospered, side by side with the old domestic 
industry, which it outshone, and the new capitalistic 
industry, which was just beginning to emerge. Finally, 
the activity of trade maintained itself on the very eve of 
the invasions, and was promoted by the appearance of more 
elaborate commercial institutions, the development of instru- 
ments of credit and of river transport, the construction of 
a magnificent network of over 90,000 miles of roads, and 
the building of great ports. ‘*‘ Every day the world grows 
more cultivated and more wealthy,’’ wrote an enemy of 
Roman society. ‘‘ Everywhere there is commerce, every- 
where towns.’’ 

What did the empire, then, lack to enable it to resist the 
new attack of the barbarians? Only a government less hide- 
bound by the rigid forms of a slow bureaucracy; only a 
ruling class more conscious of its duty and of its social 
mission ; only military institutions less permeated by the use 
of mercenary troops; only a public spirit less inert, less 
vitiated by political indifference and by personal degrada- 
tion. Other societies have experienced similar miseries, and 
have escaped death by fundamental reforms. The empire 
could not, or would not, make them, and it yielded place to 

A 


ROMAN AND BARBARIAN EUROPE 


the barbarians. But the civilization which it had created 
left sufficient trace behind to enable Europe to escape from 
a permanent barbarism. 

Among the varied elements of which the barbarian world 
was composed, the most irreducible belonged to Ural-Altaic 
races. One variety of these races, that of the Finns of the 
north and east, consisting of tribes, some nomad and others 
settled, which inhabited the zone of forests and marshes 
between the Arctic Ocean and the Upper Volga, covering half 
of modern Russia, took no part in the invasions. The other 
variety consisted of peoples of Eastern and Central Asia, 
Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Khazars, Petcheneges (Patzinaks), 
Magyars, Mongols, who were for the most part mere 
destroyers. Fierce and cruel races, knowing only a nomad 
life and owning no wealth save their herds, they obtained 
their chief means of existence from war and rapine. They 
were grouped into hordes or federations of tribes, each of 
which could place in the field 2,000 warriors, and which were 
themselves composed of hundreds of patriarchal families ; and 
they recognized the authority of an aristocracy of chiefs or 
kings (khans, khagans, or judges), who directed their 
migrations. These peoples of prey were animated by the 
rage for destruction, and their members considered it a 
shameful thing not to have slain an enemy and gloried in 
drinking from the skulls of the vanquished, and in hanging 
strips of human skin as trophies round their horses’ necks. 
They were, in the words attributed to Attila, ‘‘ the scourges 
of God ’’; they spread nothing but ruin wherever they went, 
and nothing remained of their invasions but the memory of 
a savage and stupid work of destruction. 

The influence of the Slav races was destined to be far 
more profound and less negative. Of Indo-European origin, 
they had lived obscurely up till then in the wide plain of 
Eastern Europe, for the most part as settled tribes, until 
the great Hun invasions hurled them on to the wooded 
bastions of the Carpathian Mountains. Thence, between the 
fifth and the seventh centuries, they spread over the lands 
left empty by the migrations of the Germans and Finns, 
over modern Russia (about a fifth of which they occupied, 
from the Dwina to the Dnieper and the great lakes), over 
the plains of the Vistula, which now form Poland, and even 

5 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


all along the Southern Baltic and the Sudetes into Northern 
Germany, which from Germania became Slavia, and into 
Bohemia and Moravia. In the south they peopled the 
Danube lands, Slovakia, Slovenia (Carinthia and Carniola), 
Croatia, as far as the shores of the Adriatic, and even cross- 
ing beyond the Save, sent tribes of Serbs to swarm over 
Moesia and Macedonia. They drove back, into the lands 
between their territories and the eastern shores of the Baltic, 
other tribes, also of Indo-European origin, the Borussi, 
Livonians and Lithuanians, whose rodle remained hence- 
- forth inactive. 

These varied races had not risen to the conception of the 
state. They were grouped in communities of families 
(zadrugas, dvorichés, vervs), each of which contained from 
thirty to forty members, above which, notably among 
the Yugo Slavs, there sometimes appeared larger groups, 
the brastvos, which were analogous to the Roman gentes 
and the Greek phratries. The Slavs, who were nearer to the 
patriarchal stage than the Germans, lived in each family 
under the authority of a chief or elder. Property belonged 
to the whole family community, and was indivisible and in- 
alienable. Work was performed in common. The rights of 
bequest and of private property were unknown; every- 
thing was held in common, even furniture and goods which 
were the fruit of individual labour. ‘*‘ Wherever the cow 
be led,’’ ran the old Slav proverb, *‘ she always calves at 
home.’’ All the members of a family had an equal right to 
enjoy the proceeds of the labour of each. Every group cared 
for the sick, the aged, and the househalds which were formed 
by detaching themselves from the parent stem. There was 
no village community, such as the Germans knew, but only 
federations of zadrugas, tribes (volosts, rods, jupas), in- 
numberable little clans, each with its name or surname. At 
the head of each tribe were its religious, civil, and military 
chiefs, assisted by the advice of elders and by assemblies of 
freemen. They had property, forests and pastures, which 
their members used in common, and arable land, which was 
periodically divided between the members of the tribal 
group. The great mass of the population consisted of free- 
men, jealous of their independence and enjoying equal 
rights. They recognized no superiors, save a _ nobility 

6 


ROMAN AND BARBARIAN EUROPE 


without privilege, consisting of elected chiefs. They set 
to work for them the Roman coloni, whom they found 
attached to the soil, and the slaves, whom they procured 
by war, piracy, or trade. 

Although they had already reached the stage of settled 
life, they had no towns, but only places of refuge (gorods), 
circular in shape, surrounded by wooden or earthen en- 
closures, trenches, or stockades, with a single entrance, 
round which farms and gardens were spread out in the 
form of a fan. They usually lived apart in scattered home- 
steads (derevnias), but occasionally they settled together in 
large hamlets or villages of oblong shape, in which the 
separate dwellings were built along the line of roads or 
paths. They were acquainted only with a natural and 
domestic economy ; each family and each tribe was obliged 
to be self-sufficient. A great part of the soil, especially in 
the plains of north, east, and south, was covered with marsh 
and water, whence the Slavs and Letts derived abundant 
fish. An immense forest, much of it virgin, composed of 
beech, birch, maple and pine, covered four-fifths of the vast 
regions where they dwelt. In their clearings these tribes 
hunted wild beasts, stags, deer, aurochs, and bears, and 
caught furred animals. They gathered honey from the wild 
bees, and in the open spaces, the mountain pastures, and the 
grassy meadows on the banks of rivers, they grazed great 
herds of pigs, sheep, horned cattle, and horses. The Slavs 
had a high reputation as cattle-breeders, and even for 
agriculture they showed more aptitude than the Germans, 
who borrowed the ploughshare from them. Although 
acquainted only with the methods of extensive cultivation, 
they were already producing cereals in the rich soil of these 
regions, and usually obtained a threefold return on the seed 
sown. They were familiar with industrial plants, such as 
flax and hemp, but their industry was still quite rudi- 
mentary, except as regards iron work and textiles, and 
nowhere was it carried on for a market outside the circle 
of the family and the tribe. 

Trade was carried on on the backs of men or of sumpter 
beasts, along primitive tracks, or by means of boats which 
followed the course of the rivers, but it was active only in 
the neighbourhood of the Byzantine Empire. They did not 

ff 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


know the use of money, and otter and ermine skins frequently 
took its place; usually they simply bartered goods. Never- 
theless, they admitted strangers (gosts) to dwell in special 
enclosures (gostinny dvor) for purposes of trade, and from 
the seventh century they had a number of big markets, such 
as those of Julin or Wineta in the Isle of Wollin in 
Pomerania, Novgorod, Smolensk, Leczyka, and Kiev. 
But they made no distinction between commerce and 
brigandage. To them merchant and robber were synonym- 
ous terms, and the commercial entrepdt was often the 
brigand’s den (tovary). In the Baltic they subsisted by 
piracy, among the Russians by razzias or tributes levied by 
force upon the population and kept for their own profit 
by the chiefs. These Slavs had not yet emerged from the 
rude customs of primitive peoples; they lived in caves, or in 
mud huts, and were content with the coarsest of food. 
Careless and wasteful, they were a constant prey to famine; 
brutal, quarrelsome, and without pity for the weak, they 
were so far from being the peaceful folk legend has painted 
them that a state of war was chronic among them, and was 
maintained perpetually by family and tribal rivalries, for the 
mere love of it and the need for pillage. The Russian 
chronicler Nestor and the Byzantine historians bear witness 
that these herdsmen, woodmen, and labourers excelled in a 
warfare of cunning ambush and piracy, lurking in the woods 
and swimming across great rivers, shooting marvellously 
with the bow and hurling poisoned darts. It was only under 
the influence of Christianity that they were destined to rise 
to a civilized existence. 

Their neighbours and kinsmen, the Germans, were no more 
advanced in civilization than they. A mixture of various 
elements, brachycephalous, dark and short, as well as 
dolichocephalous, tall and fair, far from that purity of 
type which is often ascribed to them, they had been 
established for a thousand years or so on the misty shores 
of the Northern European seas. One of their branches, the 
Goths, had subjugated the indigenous populations of the 
Bronze Age, such as the Finns of Southern Scandinavia, and 
had then followed the road of the Varangians, the Dnieper, 
until they reached the great plains of Eastern Europe, where 
the Visigoths and Ostrogoths settled. They left behind them 

8 


ROMAN AND BARBARIAN EUROPE 


on the shores of the Baltic, the Scandinavians, Angles, and 
Jutes, as well as the Vandals. To the second branch, the 
Teutons, belonged a number of peoples extending from the 
North Sea to the Rhine and the Upper Danube, Saxons, 
Frisians, Lombards, Burgundians, Bavarians, Thuringians, 
Franks, and Alemanni. There were in the whole of this wide 
district only about two or three millions of these barbarians , 
in the second century, and probably about four million at 
the end of the fourth. The most numerous, the Ostrogoths, 
numbered not more than 300,000 souls, the Visigoths about 
200,000, the Franks, Burgundians, and Lombards fewer still. 
Incessant warfare, famine, the difficulty of material exist- 
ence, the exposure of children, infanticide, and a high death 
rate prevented the growth of a race which was by nature 
prolific. In general, the Germans, ignorant of the concep- 
tion of the nation or the state, formed only temporary groups 
or warlike confederations. The only stable elements which 
they knew were the tribes, which contained from ten to 
twenty thousand members, and were themselves composed 
of an aggregate of village communities, families, and classes 
(genealogix, propinquitates), the latter possibly of military 
origin, grouped in several thousands of cantons (pagi, 
gauen). Beyond the illusory authority of the kings, the 
sole effective power was that of the military chiefs, elected 
war lords, and the leaders of warlike bands, round whom 
there gathered a voluntary train of clients (comitatus), who 
followed their fortunes. There was no hereditary nobility, 
but a mass of freemen who met in assembly to deliberate 
upon common affairs and to choose kings, military leaders, 
and village chiefs (principes). 

In this tumultuous democracy, in the midst of which a 
military aristocracy was growing up, the principle of greatest 
vitality lay in the patriarchal family founded upon the tie of 
blood relationship. All its members shared in its solidarity ; 
they lived indivisibly, and possessed in common an inalien- 
able patrimony. Ranging from 50 to 500 persons, these 
families recognized the absolute authority (mundium) of the 
father, who exercised full dominion over the women, 
children, and kinsmen on the paternal or maternal side. 
In this milieu inequality had grown up, as a result of the 
social division of labour. There was no priestly class, but a 

9 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


nobility which was distinguished from the mass of freemen 
only by the prestige of its wealth or by a special talent for 
warfare. The common occupations of nobles and freemen 
were the chase, a share in the affairs of the village community 
or the tribe, and, above all, war. In the eyes of all labour 
was a subordinate occupation, which they left, as they left 
domestic cares, either to servile women (ancillz), or to a 
small number of slaves (mancipia), whose price was the 
equivalent of a horse or of several oxen, or in the case of the 
arable land to serfs, lites or aldions, whose numbers were as 
small as was the extent of the cultivated land itself. 
Although they had already attained to a settled existence, 
the Germans had for the most part remained faithful to the 
primitive forms of patriarchal organization. Among them 
the collective property of tribe, canton or village pre- 
dominated, under the names of mark or allmend. It com- 
prised not only wastes, marshes, pasture lands, and forests, 
but also meadows and arable land. A German scholar has 
found traces of tribal property in the 190 cantons (pagi) of 
ancient Germania, but the property of the village community 
was of much greater importance. The land belonged to the 
community of freemen. They were its coproprietors, and 
possessed equal rights of usage and of temporary occupation 
in it. They alone had the right to dispose of it, after the 
group had taken counsel together, and they exercised collec- 
tive rights of administration and of police over it. In the 
forest, the heath, the marsh, and the pasture land, each 
could cut firewood, hunt the wild beasts, gather honey from 
the bees, and pasture his cattle under the care of the common 
herdsman. Each could have his cows or mares covered by 
the common bull or stallion, and make use of the common 
pond, well, and path. The meadows, which were enclosed 
in springtime and divided into as many lots as there were 
families, were thrown open for the cattle of all the members 
of the mark to graze over after the hay harvest was gathered. 
The best lands reserved for cultivation were divided into 
longitudinal strips (gewanne) of equal value, grouped into 
three great fields of winter seed, spring seed, and fallow. 
They were allotted annually or periodically among~ the 
families. A scholar who has made a profound study of this 
question considers that each village community comprised 
10 


ROMAN AND BARBARIAN EUROPE 


from ten to forty of these family holdings, to each of which 
was allotted by lot an average of about thirty acres, so that 
the total extent of land under cultivation by each village 
community was as much as 1,000 acres, each lot containing 
strips in all three fields. Sometimes above the village com- 
munities there existed wider groups, federations or hundreds, 
which extended over a territory of some 75 to 800 square 
miles, and grouped together 16 to 120 families for the 
common use of unallotted common lands. 

The family property consisted in the right which each 
possessed over the common lands and in the lots of arable 
land thus assigned, in which each member had an equal 
right. The whole formed the patrimony (hufe, manse), 
which might comprise 30 to 100 acres, and of which the 
greater part was under cultivation, the remainder being left 
fallow. This was the Salic land (terra aviatica) of the Franks, 
the ethel of the Anglo-Saxons. Not only the land, but also 
the cattle and the plough belonged to this co-operative 
family, whose members lived in community and enjoyed in 
common the produce of their possessions. There were no 
divisions or dowries, only parts of a whole, divided out 
among the male children and the households. Private 
property was restricted to the ownership of arms, of heads 
of cattle, of food and furniture, and of a wooden house with 
its little toft. 

The economic régime which corresponded to this social 
system was simply that of natural economy. The Germans 
knew only how to gather such produce as they obtained 
without labour, and how to cultivate the soil according to 
the most rudimentary methods of extensive cultivation. 
Under a heavy sky, struggling with a damp and cold 
climate, they lived for the most part the simple life of 
fishers, hunters, and herdsmen. On the shores of their 
inhospitable seas, in the midst of bogs and marshes, on 
sterile mud-flats, inundated by overflowing rivers or drowned 
in furious floods, under perpetual rains, and in impenetrable 
fog, the tribes of Jutes, Angles, Frisians, and Saxons de- 
rived their existence from fishing and hunting, and, braving 
the spray in their sealskin garments, launched their coracles 
of hide or their long pinewood boats upon the wide seas. 
Inland stretched wastes covered with heath or with the 

Bi 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


huge forest, whose thick mantle of oak, pine, and beech lay 
spread over four-fifths of the soil. Like the virgin forests 
of North America, it was traversed by slow rivers, strewn 
with drifting tree-trunks, and was peopled by wild beasts. 
Through it moved hunters and seekers after wild honey, and 
swineherds led their herds of pigs to pasture in its clearings 
or under the shade of its trees. Cattle-keeping in the 
pastures and meadows and on the outskirts of the forest 
was the chief occupation of the Germans, who possessed 
droves of horses, horned cattle, sheep, and goats. Idleness 
and ignorance prevented them from obtaining more than 
wretched harvests of corn, rye, oats, barley, beans, lentils, 
and flax, when they cultivated the fields with their hoes 
and wooden ploughshares. The soil rapidly became ex- 
hausted and gave very uncertain returns, for they rested it 
only by a triennial rotation of fallow, without manure ; more- 
over, the custom of periodical reallotment prevented any 
improvement being made. Except in the neighbourhood of 
the empire the Germans had neither gardens, orchards, nor 
vineyards. Their rudimentary industry was confined to the 
family or to local groups, and was limited to furnishing the 
elementary necessities of life. It was usually abandoned to 
women and serfs, who ground the corn at handmills, brewed 
the beer, span and wove the wool and linen needed by each 
household; but among a few peoples there were to be found 
free artisans, such as the Burgundian carpenters. Only a 
small number of articles, Frisian cloth and the linens and 
cloaks of Thuringia and Saxony, were fabricated in 
sufficiently large quantities for external trade. In Germany 
the salt-pits and iron-mines were also worked in a primitive 
fashion, but the common manufactured metals were so rare 
that men still sometimes made use of stone tools and 
weapons. Only a coarse sort of pottery was known, and it 
was in bronze and in goldsmith’s work alone that some sort 
of artistic effort was beginning to be attempted by the 
German workers. 

These barbarians traded with the neighbouring nations, 
above all with the Roman merchants, from whom on the 
banks of the Rhine and the Danube they purchased wine, 
stuffs, and arms in return for the produce of the chase and of 
their cattle-rearing. But they were almost wholly ignorant of 

12 


ROMAN AND BARBARIAN EUROPE 


credit and of money, and practised the simple system of 
barter, or exchange in kind. Commerce was surrounded by 
dangers. The merchant stranger, treated as an enemy or a 
suspect, had no guarantee for his life or goods in a land in 
which piracy and constant raids were considered legitimate 
methods of supplementing insufficient production. 

The Germans had remained beasts of prey. Squatting 
amid forests and marshes, they lived there in family groups, 
barricaded in their villages, hamlets, farms, their huts or 
cabins, which were surrounded by ditches, hedges, and 
palisades, guarded by fierce dogs, and concealed under a 
curtain of trees in the thick woods, or perched upon hillocks 
and islands. They had a horror of towns, and possessed no 
more than a hundred fortified strongholds, to which they 
could flee in extremity. They wore breeches and tunics of 
wool or linen, and cloaks of the skins of wild beasts, went 
barefoot, and adorned themselves with rough ornaments; 
some of them, such as the Heruli, tattooed their faces. Their 
food, consisting of milk, cheese, bacon, and meat, washed 
down on occasion with ale, was dependent upon the un- 
certainties of the chase, of their cattle-rearing, and of the 
harvest. Famines decimated these peoples, or drove them 
forth upon the warpath. Though boastful and proud, they 
were capable on occasion of discipline and of devotion, brave 
and careless of danger, but they led a miserable, uncertain, 
and perilous existence, which had developed in them instincts 
of covetousness, grossness, and brutality, a contempt for the 
weak and the vanquished, and a lust for blood and for the 
infliction of suffering. Hatreds which nothing could expiate 
divided each from each. They were superstitious and 
ignorant, quarrelsome and violent, like wild beasts driven 
by misery and hunger; and beneath the spur of an imperative 
necessity, their envy was aroused by the spectacle of the 
civilization of the empire, in which life seemed so full of 
charm, so soft and easy, in comparison with the precarious 
existence led by their race for thousands of years. It was at 
the very time when the desires of the barbarians were be- 
coming irresistible that the Roman world was sinking into a 
sort of torpor of indifference, an easeful repose, from which 
the formidable shock of the invasions was rudely to awake it. 


13 


CHAPTER II 


THE INVASIONS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BARBARIAN KINGDOMS IN 
CHRISTIAN EUROPE.—RUIN OF THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REGIME 
OF ROME (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES). 


Up to this moment the Roman Empire had for nearly six 
centuries held back the ceaselessly menacing pressure of the 
barbarians, by the help of her admirable network of 
fortresses and fortified camps, in which the 400,000 
legionaries of her permanent armies mounted guard. In 
the end, Rome had come to believe herself invincible and 
immortal. In the third century she had resisted the gravest 
attack which had been made upon her since the invasions of 
the Gauls, Teutons, and Cimbri, and after fifty years of 
struggle Aurelius, Claudius, and Diocletian had succeeded in 
restoring the military strength of the empire. But already 
a policy, which believed itself adroit and was in fact merely 
short-sighted, had allowed a gradual interpenetration of the ~ 
Roman edifice, which was fatal to its solidity. Many 
barbarian elements had been introduced into the provinces ; 
and barbarians of all races had been enrolled in the legions, 
under the title of auxiliaries (leti, foederati), both individually 
and in groups. A large number of prisoners of war had been 
distributed among the great estates, which they cultivated 
as coloni. ‘* The barbarians,’’ said Probus, ‘* work for us, 
sow for us and fight for us.’? It was a dangerous expedient, 
for it preserved an illusion of strength and security in a 
weakened state, increased the general lack of patriotism, 
relaxed social discipline, and diminished the sentiments of 
vigilance and energy. 

The thousands of barbarians who were now established in 
the empire could not but be ineffective defenders of a 
civilization which they certainly did not hate, but to which 
they were bound only by the most superficial ties. For it 
was not the hate of the barbarian against civilization which 
determined those new invasions of the fifth century, which 
were crowned by success. The invaders were only once more 
seeking a refuge in the empire, and they asked at first but a 

14 


THE INVASIONS 


humble place therein. In the history of their settlements 
violent invasions were exceptional, determined, when they 
occurred, by necessity or by conflicts with other peoples. In 
general, the future heirs of the empire presented themselves 
as armed suppliants, who held themselves happy if they 
received lands and coloni in exchange for their services as 
soldiers of Rome. But the disorder provoked by these 
invasions, both peaceful and violent, and prolonged through- 
out two centuries, did in the end destroy, if not the East, 
which withstood them, at least the West, which did not 
show the same power of resistance. 

The great migrations began from about the end of the 
fourth and continued until the end of the sixth century, 
sometimes even longer. First of all came the influx of 
Western Huns, driven from the banks of Lake Aral, who 
flung themselves upon the Gothic Empire on the shores of 
the Black Sea, destroyed it, and, carrying with them a 
remnant of Germanic and Slav peoples, obliged the Goths 
to take refuge in Dacia and Meesia, in the territory of the 
Eastern Empire, where they were received under the title 
of foederati. Soon these inconvenient allies sought to extend 
their settlements into Italy, whence Theodosius had thrown 
them back by the victory of Aquileia (394). Then the 
empire, weak and dismembered beneath the feeble successors 
of that great emperor, underwent the successive shocks of 
two great invasions: that of 200,000 Suevi, Vandals, and 
Burgundians, which Stilicho held back at Feesule (406); and 
that of the Visigoths, which he broke at Pollentia. 

The Gallic provinces and Spain, left defenceless, were 
submerged beneath the flood of other German tribes. For 
a moment the West breathed again, after the death of Alaric, 
who sacked Rome and Italy (410). Constantius and Aétius, 
following the traditional policy, allowed the Visigoths to 
establish themselves in Aquitaine and the Narbonne district, 
and then in Spain (815-346), while the Burgundians were 
permitted to settle in the Palatinate and then in Savoy, and 
the Riparian Franks on the left bank of the Rhine (400- 
436), beside their kinsmen, the Salian Franks, who were 
already established in Roman territory on the banks of the 
Yssel. The East seemed now in greater danger than the 
West, for at this moment there arose also the great Hun 

15 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


empire, stretching from the Caspian to the Danube and the 
Alps, and forcing the emperors to pay it tribute (484-435). 
But the fortune of the Huns was broken in Gaul at the 
Battle of the Seine or Marne (851), thanks to the combina- 
tion of the Romans and the German fcderati, under the 
leadership of Aetius. The death of Attila (454) delivered 
Kurope from the Hunnish peril, without preserving it from 
new invasions by Ostrogoths, Alans, Lombards, Slavs, 
Bulgars, and Avars (fifth to seventh centuries), who 
ravaged, step by step, the Danube lands, Illyria, Mecesia, 
Greece, and even Thrace. But the strong military organiza- 
tion of the Eastern Empire enabled it to hold out until the 
time of Justinian and Heraclius, welcoming some of the 
invaders as feederati and hurling the others back upon 
the Middle Danube. The Western Empire, on the other 
hand, became the prey of the barbarians. In the north- 
west the pirate bands of Angles, Jutes, and Saxons subju- 
gated the Romanized Celts and Britons, and founded their 
‘*heptarchy ”? of seven kingdoms in Britain. In Eastern 
Gaul the Burgundians created an ephemeral state in Switzer- 
land and in the Sadne and Rhone Valleys (434-531). In 
the south Visigoths occupied the country as far as the Loire, 
together with Provence and the whole of Spain (462-80). 
In the north the Franks spread over Belgium, and then, 
with the help of the Orthodox Roman Church, founded 
the first great barbarian empire of the West (486-521). 
Italy, which remained outside their influence, had now, 
after the irruption of 406 and 410, to submit to four new 
invasions—by the Vandals under Genseric (430-55), the 
Huns under Attila (452), the Heruli under Odoacer (457- 
476), and the Ostrogoths under Theodoric (475-488); and 
then, after a brief restoration of the imperial Byzantine rule, 
became the prey of the Lombards (568-590). 

Meanwhile the Western Empire had ceased to exist for 
over a century, and since 476, by an absurd convention, the 
Byzantine Emperor had proclaimed the restoration of Roman 
unity, with the assent of the barbarians, the heirs of the 
Roman power in Western Europe. 

Almost all the bands of invaders and allies at first thought 
only to live within the empire, under the tutelage and in 
the shadow of the honoured name of Rome. Almost all of 

16 


THE INVASIONS 


them proclaimed themselves its allies (fcederatt), its soldiers, 
and its defenders. In order to secure the obedience of the 
Roman peoples, they presented themselves in the guise of 
high Roman functionaries, magistri militum, consuls, and 
patricians, whose insignia they wore above their own robes 
as barbarian chiefs. These kings and princes ruled with 
the aid of the framework of the old bureaucracy, and with 
the support of the old Roman aristocracy and Church. But 
after a century or more they recognized the futility of a 
fiction which they began to find irksome. Strong in the 
servility of the Romanized peoples, and sure of retaining 
power so long as they kept the monopoly of that military 
supremacy which Rome had abandoned to the barbarians, 
they delayed no longer to reveal themselves in their true 
colours. The civilized world then experienced the fatal effect 
of a change of rule from which it had been unable to protect 
itself, and the destructive results of the barbarian conquests 
began to be felt. 

The first of these results was the disruption of the idea 
of the state. The barbarian monarchies, strange mixtures 
of Roman despotism and of the Germanic principate, 
struggled for three centuries in the grip of the leaders of 
their war bands, who had become the heads of turbulent 
aristocracies; they allowed the solid armour of the Roman 
administration to fall to pieces, and showed themselves 
powerless to prevent a fearful anarchy, in which Western 
society almost disintegrated. If the world gained thus by 
the disappearance of Roman absolutism and the Roman 
fiscal system, it lost for long centuries the blessings of order 
and internal peace. 

Happily for the future of civilization the numerical and 
social superiority of the Romanized populations was still so 
great that in the larger part of Europe the barbarian 
colonization was little more than a thin layer over the deep 
furrows left by the domination of Rome. The ancient peoples, 
Latins, Celts, Iberians, Thracians, Illyrians, and Hellenes, 
whose culture had become unified under the empire, rapidly 
assimilated, absorbed, or modified the Slav and Germanic 
and even the Asiatic peoples who were now established 
among them. If in the contact they lost a great deal of the 
character of civilized societies, they at least remained, above 

17 Cc 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


all in the domain of religion, the repository of Roman 
institutions. Among the barbarians, some, such as the 
Heruli, the Rugii, the Ostrogoths, the Suevi, and the 
Vandals, disappeared without leaving a trace behind. The 
Germans, Bulgars, and Slavs, who penetrated the Eastern 
. Empire, were almost immediately Hellenized. In the south- 
west the Lombards and Visigoths remained as conquering 
aristocracies, but the Germanic colonization left only slight 
traces, limited to the North of Spain, the duchies of Bene- 
vento and Spoleto, Tuscany, and Northern Italy. Similarly 
Gaul south of the Loire preserved hardly any trace of the 
Germanic domination which it had temporarily suffered. A 
few Saxon and Burgundian elements persisted; the one in 
the Cotentin and Maine regions, the other in the two 
Burgundies and Western Switzerland. Only in the north 
and north-east of ancient Gaul and in the Roman lands of 
the Danube did German colonization leave a deeper mark, 
and even here it was very unequal. If in the Low Countries 
Franks, Saxons, and Frisians settled in the Netherlands, 
Flanders, the Boulogne district, and Artois, the Walloons, 
descendants of the Romans, still maintained themselves in 
~ the valleys of the Sambre and the Meuse. Similarly, the 
Romano-Celtic peoples of Alsace and the Palatinate preserved 
the old Latin and Gallic foundations, despite the invasion of 
the Alamanni; and in England the Britons did the same 
beneath the Anglo-Saxon deluge. It was only in the lands 
on the right bank of the Rhine and in those of the Main, 
Danube, and Central Alps that Germanic colonization, 
represented in particular by Alamanni and Bavarians, 
installed itself as mistress and that Teutonic barbarism 
triumphed, leaving only a few scattered remnants of the | 
old Romanized populations. 

But if the invasions had little effect upon the ethnic 
foundations of the ancient Roman Empire in East and West 
alike, they had nevertheless disastrous results upon society 
and upon economic conditions. Humanity has rarely — 
experienced misery as great as that of this period. The 
masses lost heavily by the change of masters. The upper 
and middle classes of the old Roman society were swept 
away in the storm or despoiled by the barbarians, and the 
surviving members were fused with the conquerors. Property 

18 


THE INVASIONS 


changed hands, wholly or partially. In the Danube and 
Rhine lands the Germans, not content with having occupied 
the state lands and the abandoned domain lands, seized 
upon all private properties. It was the same in Britain, 
where the Anglo-Saxons completely despoiled the Britons. 
In Belgic Gaul, from the Rhine to the North Sea, the 
Franks, ancient hospites of the empire, appropriated the 
state domains, of which they enjoyed only the usufruct, 
and installed themselves upon the deserted or unoccupied 
lands, without proceeding to a useless partition by force 
with the Gallo-Romans. In the whole of this vast zone of 
the ancient empire, the Roman estate, the villa, gave way 
to the Germanic village community, the tun, weiller, dorf. 
Elsewhere the Burgundians, Visigoths, Heruli, Ostrogoths, 
in Gaul and in Aquitaine, in Spain and in Italy, invoked and 
altered in their own favour the rights which the Roman state 
recognized to its military defenders. They demanded as 
hospites, in virtue of the official custom of hospitalitas, not 
only lodging and dwelling-place, but also a share in all 
properties and their fruits. The Visigoths and Burgundians 
demanded and occupied by legal means two-thirds of the 
great domains of the imperial state and of the aristocracy, 
leaving the last third in full ownership to the large Roman 
proprietors. Similarly, they forced the cession of two- 
thirds of the gardens, vineyards, cattle, slaves, coloni, and 
houses. Old and new landowners, the latter under the title 
of hospites or consortes, dwelt side by side on the same 
domains and shared the revenues, according to the legal 
proportion. They used forests and pastures in common. 
Since the Germans were not very numerous, this measure 
of spoliation was accomplished without difficulty, left few 
traces, and affected only a minority of landowners. More 
moderate still in Italy, the spoliation extended only to a 
third of the lands and landed revenues of the Romans, but 
the Heruli made odious by their brutality a decision which 
the more intelligent Ostrogoths of Theodoric were able to 
render acceptable. The latter confined themselves to taking, 
as hospites through the Treasury, one-third of the revenues in 
money or in kind of the public domains and the great 
private estates, which had been allotted to them. But all 
was changed with the advent of the Lombards; these brutal 
19 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


conquerors were not content with settling themselves and 
their families on the lands of the great Roman landowners, 
whom they massacred en masse, and of the churches, which 
they despoiled, but, in addition, obliged the surviving Latin 
populations to pay to the new Germanic hospites a third 
of the produce of the lands, whose usufruct they retained. 
Thus there came about a great transference of property in 
the West. It worked in favour of the growth of a landed 
aristocracy formed of predominant Germanic elements, 
mingled with assimilated Roman elements, to the detriment 
of the class of small free proprietors, whose number and 
influence naturally diminished very quickly. The large 
aristocratic estate, which since the end of the empire had 
been tending to absorb the soil, received an impetus in 
vitality and expansion from the invasions. At the same 
time the primitive forms of landownership, the collective 
property of the village and of the family, reappeared in the 
civilized West, where the Roman genius had brought about 
the prevalence of individual private property. 

Far from bearing with them into the empire democratic 
principles of liberty and equality, the Germans only spread 
therein the oppression of poor by rich and of weak by strong, 
and subjected the masses to an oligarchy of chiefs of war- 
bands, who were the masters of men and lands alike. Rome 
had fused within herself all classes and all races, and had 
brought them into an equality beneath her laws. The 
Germanic customs established profound inequalities between 
the divers peoples of the barbarian states. In Gaul there 
were as many as seven different codes of law, aceording to 
the origin of the inhabitants, Romans, Salian, Riparian, and 
Chamavian Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, and Alamanni. 
High barriers separated the different social ranks, to each of 
which a different penal legislation was applied, shamefully 
indulgent towards the upper classes and barbarously harsh 
towards the lower, for whom were reserved the punishments 
of mutilation and torture. The aristocracy, alone in its 
pride, was at pains to prevent any rise in the social scale 
by forbidding marriages between its members and those of 
other classes, on pain of a loss of rank. The barbarians dared 
not openly attack the liberty of freemen of Germanic origin, 
who were established side by side with the chiefs upon the 

20 


THE INVASIONS 


lands of the empire. In the profoundly Romanized districts 
of Southern Gaul, Spain, and Italy, they allowed the con- 
tinuance of a number of small free proprietors of Roman 
origin. But everywhere by means of a steady underground 
process, made. easier by the disappearance of all authority 
and by the reign of force, the new aristocracies set to work 
to rob freemen of their landed property and of their personal 
liberty. In all regions wherein German settlements pre- 
dominated, the ancient class of Roman landowners dis- 
appeared, either decimated or enslaved. In Britain the 
Anglo-Saxons reduced those Britons whom they spared to 
the condition of coloni or rural slaves. Throughout Belgic 
Gaul, in the lands watered by the Rhine and the Danube, 
the free Gallo-Roman populations who succeeded in escaping 
massacre, and who did not emigrate, were driven to cultivate 
as semi-serfs (tributarii) the domains and farms of the 
Germanic conquerors, and went to swell the ranks of the 
ancient coloni. Thus the barbarians solved the problem of 
agricultural labour and were able to live in idleness upon 
the work of the old Roman landowners and cultivators. A 
similar fate overtook a smaller proportion of the old free 
classes of Celtic Gaul, Spain, and Italy; it became general in 
proportion as the rule of the barbarians grew firmer. Thus 
in the Italian peninsula the Lombards reduced all the free 
population, even the priests, to the condition of the Roman 
or Germanic colont. 

The colonate itself, which under the laws of the Christian 
empire had marked a stage in social progress, in the barbarian 
period took on the aspect of a retrogressive institution, 
whereby men became more, rather than less, dependent. 
While Roman law had assured to the colonus his personal 
liberty and stability on the soil which he cultivated, the 
customs and laws of the barbarians assimilated the colonus 
to the serf—i.e., to the unfree, and to the urban or domestic 
slave, who could be separated from his family and trans- 
planted from one domain to another. On the other hand, 
the serfs ceased to be distinguished from slaves, and their 
position became equally precarious. At the close of the 
Roman Empire slavery was on the point of becoming 
extinct; but during the three centuries which followed the 
first barbarian invasions, it was reconstituted and spread 

21 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


with extreme rapidity. Constant wars and raids, veritable 
man-hunts, analogous to those which still continue in Central 
Africa, threw thousands of men and women upon the market 
at miserable prices. The penal legislation of the barbarians 
multiplied the number of these unhappy wretches, decreeing 
the punishment of loss of liberty for the most inconsiderable 
misdemeanours, and, on the other hand, so great was the 
prevalent misery that for numbers of despairing creatures 
slavery was a sort of refuge. The greater part of the Roman 
populations, spared by the victors in Britain, in the Danube 
and Rhine districts, even in Gaul, Belgium, and Italy (during 
the Lombard period), were thus reduced to servitude. The 
domestic servants of the aristocracy were similarly recruited, 
and the cultivation of the land and the care of herds and 
flocks was confided in part to bands of slaves (servi rustici, 
mancipia). These men, once more reduced to the level of 
beasts and things, were tied to their terrible condition by 
the law, which made enfranchisements rarer and more diffi- 
cult, and forbade marriages between free and servile persons. 
It once more put the power of life and death into the hands 
of the masters and delivered over the slaves, almost without 
defence, to the atrocious and bestial fury of their owners. 
The enumeration of the cruel punishments to which men of 
servile condition were subjected—the loss of ears, nose, eyes, 
tongue, hands, and genital organs—and the various tortures 
to which they were submitted fills whole columns of the 
barbarian codes, until the reader cannot restrain a shudder. 
Mankind had passed far away from that great humanitarian 
movement which from the second to the fourth century had 
left its trace on Roman legislation upon slavery. 

All the guarantees with which the expiring civilization 
of the ancient world had surrounded the life and possessions 
of the individual disappeared in the anarchy let loose by 
the barbarians. Even among the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and 
Franks, who were already half Romanized by a long sojourn 
within the empire, the sudden awakening of ancestral ferocity 
transformed these ‘‘ guests’? into unchained murderers. 
Alaric and his followers in Beotia, Attica, Thessaly, and 
Macedonia slew the inhabitants and carried off the 
women and cattle. ‘‘ For us,’’ says Salvian, Archbishop 
of Marseilles, himself the apologist of the barbarians, ‘‘ there 

22 


THE INVASIONS 


is neither peace nor security.’’ Another contemporary, 
Prosper of Aquitaine, cries, towards 416: ‘“‘It is ten years 
since we fell beneath the sword of the Vandals and. Goths; 
the people has perished, even children and young maids 
they slew.”? In Auvergne and Aquitaine in the sixth century 
the Austrasians were guilty of similar crimes. Fiercer still 
were those Germans who were untouched by Roman civiliza- 
tion. Angles, Jutes, and Saxons were wild beasts, who must 
have blood at all costs, and before setting sail they usually 
put to the sword a tenth of their prisoners. In Britain they 
committed such atrocities that the Romano-Celtic aristocracy 
fled to Armorica to escape death, while a large number of 
the Britons were slain. The cruelty of the Alamanni left 
upon the memory of Western Europe almost as profound an 
‘impression as that of the Huns. The war bands which took 
part in the great invasion of 406 in Italy and Gaul spread 
terror far and wide by their atrocious exploits; they trans- 
formed the town of Treier into a charnel-house, in which 
the naked bodies of men and women were devoured by dogs 
and birds of prey. In Aquitaine and in Spain the faithful 
and the clergy were beaten, thrown into chains, and burned 
alive. Everywhere, at the sack of cities and towns, women 
suffered the supreme outrage. After the capture of Rome 
Alaric’s Visigoths, reclining in the shade, forced the sons 
and daughters of the senators, captives of their harems, to 
serve them with Falernian wine in golden cups. With each 
expedition the women’s quarters of the conquerors grew. 
Throughout the second half of the fifth century a contem- 
porary witnesses that ‘‘ the forest of swords mowed down 
the Italian nobility like corn.’’ Later, in the sixth century, 
the savagery of the Lombards passed all bounds. ‘* Murder 
is nothing to them,”’ writes the annalist Paul Deacon. 
‘“*Even as a sword leaping from the scabbard so did this 
fierce horde ravage, and men fell even as the ears of wheat 
beneath the sickle.’? In the East the same terrible sights 
were everywhere to be seen; men were massacred, women 
and children carried away, by the invading bands of 
Turanians, Germans, and Slavs in Macedonia, Thessaly, 
Greece, Illyria, Epirus, and the Danubian provinces. Ostro- 
goths hacked off the arms of labourers in Pannonia, and 
impaled the coloni of Illyria; Slavs crucified the peasants 
23 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


and artisans, whom they made prisoners, head downwards, 
or shot them full of arrows. Throughout the peninsula heaps 
of whitening bones marked the place where once stood 
villages, whose inhabitants had been massacred or had died 
of hunger. 

The barbarians took the same delight in destruction and 
pillage that they took in killing and violence. They carried 
everything away as they passed, leaving behind them only 
the glare of fire and dreary heaps of ruins. From 406 to 
416, according to St. Jerome’s testimony, the barbarians 
destroyed every sign of civilization from the Alps to the 
Pyrenees, and from the ocean to the Rhine. .** All Gaul 
burned upon the same bonfire,’’ writes a Bishop of Auch. 
Prosper of Aquitaine expresses himself in the same terms in 
his poem. ‘‘ The temples of God were delivered to the flames 
and monasteries were sacked. If the waves of the ocean 
had overflowed the fields of Gaul they would have done less 
damage.’’ He shows the Visigoths themselves engaged in 
pillaging Roman villas, carrying off silver, furniture, and 
cattle, dividing up the jewels and drinking the wine. They 
bore away the sacred vessels of the churches, and to crown 
their work set fire to the houses. When they passed through 
Auvergne, in the time of Sidonius Apollinarius (471-5), their 
escort, says that poet, was ‘‘ flame and sword and famine.”’ 
St. Jerome, travelling through the Italian provinces after 
the invasions of the first third of the fifth century, could 
hardly find a house standing or a field under cultivation. 
When the half-civilized gave themselves over to such 
excesses, it may be imagined what was the behaviour of 
the completely barbarous Vandals, Huns, Alamanni, Anglo- 
Saxons, and Lombards. The Alamanni, in the Romanized 
districts of the Rhine and Danube, heaped their chariots 
with furniture, garments, the very stones of the villas, and 
set fire to what they could not carry away. The Huns 
destroyed everything and left a desert behind them. The 
Vandals sacked with a thoroughness which has made their 
name a synonym for furious destruction, and the Anglo- 
Saxons merited a like renown. The Heruli reduced North 
Italy to misery by their raids, and Paul Deacon calls the 
Lombards a “‘ race of thieves,’’ as prompt to murder as to 
rob. At the very period when the barbarians had succeeded 

24 


THE INVASIONS 


in making stable settlements, the wars of kings and peoples, 
tribes and families, perpetuated these customs, which were 
so destructive of a regular and productive social and 
economic life. In expeditions such as that of the Austrasians 
into Auvergne and Aquitaine in the sixth century, all that 
was left of the prosperity of the country disappeared beneath 
the brutal hand of the barbarians, who set fire to the harvest, 
cut down the fruit-trees, tore up the vines, pillaged barns 
and cellars, drove away before them troops of captives and 
domestic animals, and sowed desolation and death all around 
them. Sometimes the very excess of despair drove the 
peasants to take arms against them; the Bagaude of Spain 
thus resisted the Suevi and Visigoths in the fifth century. 
But in general there was no resistance, because the masses 
knew that it was useless. 

In such a society, delivered over without mercy to all 
the abuses of brutal force and of unchecked barbarism, 
economic life waned, and sometimes seemed about to cease 
altogether. Agricultural labour became scarce, owing to the 
great slaughter of men, the slave raids, the famines and 
epidemics, which had become almost chronic. The growing 
insecurity discouraged all production, and everywhere in 
West and East alike stretched vast wastes, unpopulated and 
uncultivated. All the documents speak of these deserted 
lands, eremi, vastinx, solitudines, loca invia. Of fifth- 
century Spain there remained, according to the annalist 
Idacius, ‘‘only a name.’? Round about Narbonne the 
site of the vineyards and olive groves could no longer 
be distinguished beside the ruined farm buildings. Armorica — 
and a large part of Helvetia had relapsed into a state of 
waste, and Northern Gaul, as the Salic Law witnesses, was 
full of abandoned lands. The Gothic chronicler Jordanes 
describes the desolation of the Danube regions, where ‘* not 
a labourer is to be seen,’’ and Procopius that of the fields 
of the Balkan peninsula, ‘*‘ which seem,” he says, *‘ like the 
Scythian Desert.’’ Kent, to-day one of the most animated 
ant-heaps of the world, was, after the Anglo-Saxon invasions, 
no more than a narrow borderland on the edge of vast forests 
and waste lands. The forest once more reigned supreme, 
and covered a large part of Gaul, Britain, the Rhineland, 
the Danube district, Northern Spain, and Central Italy. 

25 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Flanders, which was later to become ‘‘ one continuous 
town,’’ was then a marshy woodland. Everywhere fens 
stretched over the lowlands of the Netherlands, the eastern 
counties of England, oceanic and Mediterranean Gaul, the 
valleys of the Po, the Arno, and the Tiber, and, indeed, 
the majority of river valleys. The barbarians knew neither 
how to care for nor how to breed the cattle, which were 
decimated by continual murrains. The land, ill cultivated, 
according to primitive methods by these new masters, who 
knew nothing of the agricultural science of the Romans, 
now gave but uncertain harvests. The Germanic system of 
common cultivation with periodical divisions of the soil, 
which was introduced into part.-of the ancient imperial 
territory, only aggravated the evil. Rich crops, such as 
orchards, vineyards, and industrial plants, were partially 
abandoned in those lands where the Romans had introduced 
them. Nevertheless, the miserable populations which 
survived took refuge in the fields and the great domains, 
which were protected by ditches and palisades, or by 
embankments of earth and stones, or else in the shadow 
of the old Roman townships (vici), which could serve as a 
refuge for the small cultivators. Natural economy once 
more predominated, and life became concentrated and 
localized in the country districts, where the barbarians 
preferred to dwell. 

Industrial economy, indeed, received its death-blow with 
that of the towns, which had been the home of the Grzco- 
Roman civilization. The barbarians showed a peculiar 
savagery in destroying those cities, in which the most 
flourishing varieties of industry and corporations of artisans 
had developed and still survived. Everywhere the conquerors 
dispersed the townsfolk and destroyed everything which 
might preserve the memory of civilized life—temples, 
churches, basilicas, theatres, circuses. Buildings and monu- 
ments alike were delivered to the flames, and throughout 
both West and East numbers of still flourishing towns dis- 
appeared, never to rise again. The Huns alone destroyed 
seventy in the Eastern and Illyrian dioceses. The Slavs 
ruined and emptied the Illyrian, Dacian, and Dardanian 
towns. In the Danube lands there disappeared Margus in 
Mesia, Ratiaria in Dacia, Siscia, Sirmium in Savia, 

26 


3.) =e 


THE INVASIONS 


Aquencum (Bude) in Valeria, Carnuntum and Vindobona 
(Vienna) in Pannonia, Emona, Virunum (Laibach), Juvavum 
(Salzburg), Laureacum (Lorch) in Noricum, Curia (Coire), 
Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg), Regina Castra (Regens- 
burg). In the Rhenish provinces Aurelia Aquensis (Aix- 
la-Chapelle), Xanten, Cologne, Utrecht, Mainz, Worms, 
Strasburg, Treier, Augusta Rauracorum (Augst), and Speier 
were destroyed in the course of the fifth century. Tongres, 
Tournai, Reims, and Metz in Belgic Gaul were similarly 
destroyed. In Britain the prosperous little towns which the 
Romans had created—Londinium (London), Eboracum 
(York), Camelodunum (Colchester), Dorovernum (Canter- 
bury), Venta Icenorum (Norwich), Aqua Solis (Bath)—were 
transformed into heaps of ruins. In Celtic Gaul the Helvetian 
town of Aventicum (Avenches) was razed to the ground, 
and so also was Lillebonne, the metropolis of the Seine 
estuary. The Austrasians burned Thiers and Brioude, the 
Alans Valentia, the Visigoths Bordeaux. In Spain the 
Suevi destroyed Mérida, the Vandals Hispalis (Seville) and 
Carthagena, the Visigoths Astorga, Palencia and Braga; 
Tarragona was left half standing. In Italy the Vandals 
subjected the towns of Sicily, Palermo, Syracuse, Catania, 
and Termini to such treatment that they had not revived 
at the end of the sixth century. In North and Central 
Italy the successive invasions of Visigoths, Huns, Heruli, 
Ostrogoths, Austrasians, and Lombards brought about the 
total or partial ruin of Aquileia, Concordia, Odero, Este, 
Treviso, Viacenza, Padua, Mantua, Cremona, Populonium, 
Fermo, Osimo, Spoleto, and a number of Cisalpine, 
Ligurian, and Tuscan towns and others in the Marches and 
in Campania. The population fied in terror into the islands 
and forests and mountains. ‘‘ He may call himself a rich 
man now who has bread,’’ wrote a contemporary, and the 
relics of the old population, which crept back to dwell 
among the ruins, had wild beasts for company. Rome itself, 
thrice sacked in the fifth century and five times taken by 
assault in the sixth, was only the shadow of the superb 
imperial city, and in the time of Gregory the Great (600) 
numbered only 50,000 inhabitants, a bare twentieth of her 
former population. Within the crumbling walls of these 
ghostly towns and in their half-deserted streets a few 
27 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


miserable artisans still vegetated, all that was left of the 
flourishing crafts of the past. Ploughed fields and gardens 
occupied the greater part of the open spaces, destitute of 
houses and of inhabitants. Industrial activity disappeared, 
and the very traditions of the ancient industry were lost. 
The West fell back again into the elementary economic life 
of primitive peoples. 

In the midst of the universal disorganization trade was 
reduced to a simple traffic in foodstuffs or in manufactures 
of primary necessity, and its range of circulation was very 
narrow. The great home and foreign commerce, which 
had developed so brilliantly under the empire, was no longer 
possible. Everything which was necessary to promote and 
to facilitate business was lacking. Land was now once more 
the sole capital, and natural products served as a medium 
of exchange. Trade by barter, the primitive method in use 
among the Germans, reappeared in the ancient Roman 
Empire, where money became rare and credit disappeared. 
The fine Roman roads, no longer kept in repair, deteriorated, 
the bridges fell down, the imperial post ceased, there were 
no more relays. All rapid movement became impossible. 
Everywhere insecurity reigned; brigands fell upon travellers 
and merchants on the edge of the woods and at the fords 
across rivers and marshes. Armed bands prowled about the 
country, and journeys became perilous expeditions, under- 
_taken only in caravans and with armed escorts. The ports 
declined, the seas were infested with pirates, maritime trade 
became as uncertain as land commerce. The great trans- 
port companies had for the most part broken up, and the 
shipbuilders were ruined. ‘*‘ He who once fitted out six 
great vessels,’’ says a writer of the fifth century, “‘ is happy 
now if he owns but one little boat.”’ 

There was misery and want everywhere in town and 
country alike. Bands of beggars whined for alms at the doors 
of the churches, the castles on the great estates, and the 
royal palaces. It was among these miserable beings that 
the bands of criminals who swarmed everywhere were re- 
cruited. At Rome in 410 no less than 14,000 had to be 
supported by alms. ‘* Wretched, wretched that we are,”’’ 
wrote Salvian in the fifth, and Gregory the Great in the sixth, 
century. A long cry of anguish echoes through the acts of 

28 


THE INVASIONS 


councils and the correspondence of statesmen at this time; 
**the world seems near its end,’? lamented Gregory I. 
Death indeed mowed down in great swathes those who 
survived the invasions. Many who escaped sword and fire 
died of privation and hunger, or were carried off by the 
natural disorders which were now let loose upon. mankind. 
Famine accompanied the invasions in Noricum, Gaul, Spain, 
and Italy. Even in times of peace the West and the East 
alike went in fear of dearth. ‘* Anything rather than starva- 
tion ’”’ (*‘ cuncta fame leviora mihi’’), was the saying on all 
lips. But famine reappeared periodically after droughts, 
floods, and the ravages of warlike bands, and sometimes in 
a form so terrible that there were sporadic scenes of 
cannibalism. In the sixth century, particularly, it was to 
all intents and purposes permanent, and on one occasion 
alone (536) 50,000 peasants died of starvation in a single 
province of Central Italy. In 556 the East itself, in the 
midst of Justinian’s triumphant reign, knew the horrors of 
famine. Epidemics, dysentery, typhus, and the Asiatic 
plague completed the deadly work. They flourished in the 
fifth century, and still more in the second half of the sixth 
and in the seventh, notably in Britain and Italy. In 
Ireland and Wales and in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from 
a third to a half of the population perished. In Auvergne 
(571) one Sunday 800 persons fell dead in a single church. 
At Rome Gregory I saw in one hour eighty persons lying 
in the throes of death in the street. From 552 to 570 the 
Eastern Empire was decimated by the bubonic plague, which 
reappeared there and spread to Sicily and Calabria in 746 
and 747. The Black Death of the fourteenth century alone 
can be compared to it in destructiveness. The wretched 
physique of the people caused nervous maladies, leprosy, 
and St. Anthony’s Fire to multiply. The general exhaustion 
diminished fertility and reduced the birth-rate. The result 
of all this was that the population of West and East fell in 
this period to one of the lowest levels reached during the 
whole of the Christian era. The Danubian, Rhenish, Breton, 
and Gallic lands, which had at one time in the second century 
numbered over thirty million persons, lost in all probability 
a half or two-thirds of their population. Pannonia, Noricum, 
Rhetia, Helvetia, Gaul, Belgium, Britain, Spain, and North 
29 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


and Central Italy suffered particularly severely, and the 
Balkan Peninsula perhaps even more than they. Con- 
temporaries are unanimous in describing the desolation of 
the world, in West and East alike, the impression of solitude 
and of desert which it left upon their minds; and some 
believed that they had reached that end of the world pre- 
dicted by the Scriptures. 

The material and moral disaster was, indeed, immense, 
and seemed irreparable. Civilized life, especially in the 
East, had been thrust back into barbarism. Neither labour 
nor intelligence was honoured. Force reigned supreme, 
and the warrior band exploited Western society without 
pity. A minority of chiefs and fighters lived upon war and 
pillage, oppressed the wretched population of coloni and 
slaves on its domains, heaped up the fruits of its rapine, 
filled its harems with girls, its stables with horses, and its 
kennels with hounds, divided its leisure between banqueting 
and the chase, dog fights, and violent exercise. The nobility 
and freemen, shunning the ruined towns, lived in their 
ville, their family dwelling-places, or their hamlets on the 
edge of the great common forests, like the idle, rude, and 
brutal conquerors they were. The working classes, who 
laboured for them, were exposed to all the risks of an un- 
regulated and anarchical society, whose only rule was 
violence. The idleness, stupidity, coarseness, ignorance, 
credulity, and cruelty of the barbarians took the place of 
the well-regulated activity, the polish, culture, and relative 
humanity of the Romans. There was no longer any respect 
for the weak, for peasants and women and children. There 
was no discipline, no moral code to restrain these invaders, 
who merely added the vices of civilization to the depravity 
of barbarism. Far from regenerating the world, they very 
nearly wiped out civilization for ever. They destroyed the 
ordered societies of the West, only to replace them by 
anarchy. Far from bringing freedom in their train, they re- 
established slavery. Far from diminishing class distinctions, 
they reared new barriers between the classes. Far from 
ameliorating the condition of the lower classes, they made 
it harder. Far from assisting economic development, they 
ruined all activity by sowing everywhere pillage, disorder, 
and destruction. They created nothing, but they destroyed 

80 


THE INVASIONS 


much, and they put a stop to all progress for several 
centuries. In society and in labour the barbarian settle- 
ments produced one of the greatest retrogressions which 
the world has ever known. Their one useful result was that 
they gave finer spirits an impetus to energy and to action, 
and thus, out of sheer. reaction, brought about a series of 
attempts to return to the traditions of Roman government, 
and roused the Church from its mystic dream, in order that 
it might save the remnants of civilization from shipwreck. 
In the Kast the Roman edifice had weathered the storm, 
and could serve as a model and framework for the restora- 
tion of society and of labour. In the West the spirit and 
institutions of Rome, adapted to new conditions of environ- 
ment, were destined to inspire those attempts at economic 
and social restoration which took place towards the end of 
the Dark Ages. 


31 


CHAPTER III 


THE EAST ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RECONSTRUC= 
TION. OF EASTERN EUROPE FROM THE FIFTH TO THE TENTH CENTURY. 
—COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.—THE DIVISION 
OF PROPERTY AND RURAL CLASSES IN EASTERN EUROPE. 


THE Eastern Empire was, during the first six centuries of 
this period, a harbour of refuge for civilization, where the 
organization of labour could attain more stability and power 
than anywhere else. Better protected by its geographical 
position and by the military system,which it inherited almost 
intact from the Roman state and itself perfected, this empire 
braved all the attacks of barbarism for a thousand years. 
With a marvellous vitality it was able to recover from its 
defeats; now that its African, Syrian, Danubian, and 
Western dependencies had been amputated, it fell back upon 
itself, and found in the concentration of its forces a new 
element of solidity. For 600 years, with intervals of deca- 
dence followed by brilliant returns to prosperity, the most 
remarkable of which lasted for over three centuries—the 
eighth to the eleventh—it defended itself against darkness 
and ruin. Its elegant and refined civilization enabled it to 
introduce some sort of culture among the barbarian popula- 
tions of the East and to educate those of the West, as well 
as to escape the continual anarchy with which the latter had 
to struggle. It was the first to build up once more a real 
Hellenic nationality, which, if not founded upon unity of race 
and language, did at least rest upon a community of political 
and religious institutions, and was at least animated by an 
ardent patriotism, zealous for the glory and grandeur of the 
state. Under the care of a powerful and enlightened govern- 
ment, served by an ordered administration, and protected by 
a strong religious and military organization, the Eastern 
Empire facilitated the restoration and development of 
economic activity in all its forms. 

**Two things,’? said a Byzantine emperor of the 
tenth century, ‘‘ are necessary for the preservation of the 
state—agriculture and the military art.’? For this reason 
the repopulation of the countryside and the promotion of 

32 


RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


agricultural colonization were among the first preoccupations 
of the Byzantines, who, like the Romans, saw in land the 
essential source of wealth and power. It was the great 
honour of the Eastern Empire that it succeeded in solving 
this problem long before the West. It succeeded thanks to 
methods of colonization which it had received in large part 
from Rome, and which it proceeded to follow with methodical 
perseverance. Numerous military colonies were established 
in the themes (provinces), and there soldiers cultivated the 
lands given over to them as a form of military service. The 
empire was also colonized by means of heretical Christian 
sects—Manicheans, Jacobites, Paulicians—who were trans- 
ported from Armenia and Asia Minor into Thrace and Greece. 
In the seventh century 12,000 Syrian adventurers from 
Lebanon—the Mirdites—were settled in Thrace, the Pelo- 
ponnesus, and Epirus. If necessary, slaves were enfranchised, 
as was done by one emperor in order to colonize the deserted 
lands of Southern Italy. During five centuries thousands of 
coloni of barbarian origin were installed in all the European 
districts of the empire; some were Germans, such as the 
Goths in Thrace and Illyria, the Gepidi, Heruli, and Lom- 
bards in Pannonia between the Drave and Save; some were 
Semites, Arabs, Egyptians; others, Persians, Armenians, and 
Circassians, were of Aryan race. If need be, captives of 
Turanian origin were baptized and became, in their turn, 
labourers. Thus Avars were established in Messenia near 
Navarino, Bulgarians in Acarnania in the environs of Actium, 
14,000 Turks were settled in Eastern Macedonia, and others 
round the lake of Ochrida. But the most numerous con- 
tingent of agricultural colonists was furnished by the Slavs. 
On a single occasion Justinian ITI established 70,000 prisoners 
of this race in the basin of the Strymon and in Eastern 
Macedonia. 

Part of Thrace was colonized by these barbarians, who 
gave Byzantium a great emperor, Basil I ‘‘ the Macedonian.”’ 
They came during five centuries in such populous tribes that 
they assimilated the Armenians, Persians, Turks, and Asiatic 
Greeks, who had been transported like themselves into the 
country, and at one time in the sixth century Macedonia 
received the name of Slavenia (Slovenia). Southern Thessaly, 
the Pindus region, Attica, and, above all, the Peloponnesus, 

33 D 


\ 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


were repopulated, thanks to these Slav colonies, and it was 
by such means that in the tenth century, by an emperor’s 
admission, the whole of the Morea became a Slav district. 
It was the same in the south of Italy. The great work of 
Byzantium was to mould these colonists, who had as yet no 
national consciousness, and to Hellenize them by converting 
them to the orthodox religion. Out of this assemblage of so 
many different races sprang forth a re-rejuvenated Hellenic 
nationality, while at the same time there arose once more a 
source of agricultural labour. There are many indications 
that the Byzantine Empire was, in the tenth century, once 
again the most highly populated part of the continent. 
Thus the cultivation of the soil and the development of 
agricultural production was facilitated. The extent of 
deserted lands diminished, and the emperors took energetic 
measures to combat the abandonment of rural domains. 
First, they decreed that landowners who left their lands 
uncultivated should forfeit them. Then in the sixth century 
there was established the epibole, by virtue of which those 
who held arable land were made responsible for the payment 
of taxes, which fell upon uncultivated land so heavily as to 
oblige the taxpayers to bring it under cultivation. ©The 
epibole lasted until the tenth century and was even re- 
established later. But the renascence of agricultural activity 
in the East was due rather to civil and military colonization 
than to measures of coercion. Very soon cultivation pro- 
duced such great benefits in the now peaceful empire that the 
state, the great and the small landowners, all set themselves 


with equal ardour to reap the fruits thereof. After periods of - 


depression the empire did indeed, especially from the eighth 
to the eleventh century, reach a remarkable height of pros- 
perity, more particularly in Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, 
Greece, and Southern Italy. The Christian East revived once 
more the Greek and Roman traditions of agricultural science. 
Treatises on agriculture and on stock-breeding were written 
in that tenth century, which was an age of gold in the Kast, 
and in the West an age of iron. Many improved methods of 


cultivation, such as irrigation, the perfected forms of arbori- 


culture, and the cultivation of the vine and of industrial 
plants, for which we are wont to honour the Arabs, seem 


in reality to have been of Syrio-Byzantine origin. It was 


34 


=e eee :, _—— Eee 


RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


Byzantium which, under the Isaurian emperors, gave the 
world the first model of a rural code (Nomoi georgiko1), and 
which laid down the rules of a wise agrarian administration. 

Nowhere was agricultural production as far advanced and 
as well balanced as in the Kast. The Byzantine provinces, 
then far less denuded than they are to-day, were full of rich 
forests, notably in the Dinaric Alps, the Balkans, Pindus, 
Lucania, and Calabria. Princes and great nobles had mag- 
nificent parks, and timber was obtained from the forests for 
building purposes. Fisheries flourished in the Black Sea, the 
Archipelago, the Ionian Sea, and the Adriatic. Everywhere 
pig-breeding and sheep-farming prospered, especially in the 
forest regions and on the plateaux. Cattle-raising was 
carried on in the plains of Thrace, Mcesia, Macedonia, 
Beeotia, Elis, Messenia, and Southern Italy. The emperors 
and the great landowners made it a point of honour to keep 
up studs, and to raise race-horses and army chargers: those 
of Thrace and of the Peloponnesus were famous. Grecian 
honey had lost none of its renown. Thrace, Macedonia, 
Thessaly, Messenia, Apulia, Sicily, and Campania were still 
the richest granaries in Europe. No Christian country could 
rival the orchards of the Eastern Empire; almonds, lemons, 
oranges, figs, and raisins, the fruit of the Archipelago, 
Greece, and Southern Italy, were busily exported. The 
scented wines of Lesbos, Samos, Greece, and Sicily were 
world-famous. The Eastern Empire held the first place also 
in the cultivation of dye plants and medicinal herbs, a 
monopoly in the cultivation of the sugar cane, cotton, and 
of mulberries and the rearing of silkworms. It was from 
agricultural produce that it drew the greater part of that 
wealth for which it was admired and envied by all men in 
the Middle Ages. 

This economic renaissance strengthened in the East the 
Roman principle of private property, over which its owner 
had an absolute right, while at the same time common 
property belonging to the state and to collective owners 
grew progressively less. The imperial and fiscal domains, 
although often very considerable as a result of conquests, 
confiscation, disinheritances, and the devolution of vacant 
lands to the state, nevertheless diminished, by reason of 
the inexhaustible munificence of the emperors towards the 

35 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Church, or by dint of the continual concession of ‘*‘ benefices ”’ 
to officers and soldiers. First the municipalities (cities and 
curle), then the innumerable rural communities grouped 
round townships, which were the centres of a district (metro- 
come) and took the place of the old cities, began to find the 
utmost difficulty in preserving their land from the enterprises 
of the treasury and, above all, of the clergy and large owners. 
Nevertheless, by dint of energy and tenacity the communes 
succeeded in keeping a portion of those common pastures, 
woods, fields, and meadows, which the mass of the poorer 
inhabitants of the countryside found so useful. 

In spite of all, the concentration of landed property made 
great strides. Great estates grew, to the profit of the Church 
and the aristocracy. Already very rich in the fourth century, 
the Oriental clergy added immeasurably to their territorial 
wealth in the course of the early Middle Ages, through the 
piety of the faithful, of princes, of the nobility, through 
usurpations at the expense of defenceless communities and 
individuals, and also through the intelligence of their 
economic administration. The patriarchates, the fifty-seven 
metropolitan sees, the forty-nine archbishoprics, the fifty- 
four bishoprics, the innumerable convents, chapels, oratories, 
churches—nay, even the simple ‘‘ lauras’’ or hermitages— 
benefited by this immense extension of ecclesiastical posses- 
sions, to which were attached exorbitant privileges, and 
which were exempt from part of the state charges, untrans- 
ferable and inalienable. The Church was even adroit enough 
to obtain for itself the right of levying dues (canons) in 
money or in kind from the peasants, and minute registers 
of these, known as breviaries or polyptycha, were drawn up. 
Its fortune grew without remission, and if it was sometimes 
employed to support the useful work of religious propaganda, 
charity, or progress in the arts and sciences, 1t served more 
often still to favour the luxury and idleness of a caste, which 
pleaded the rules of its Order to avoid manual labour. 
Wealth only fortified the fanaticism and lust for power of 
a body which tended always to form a state within the state, 
while escaping the fiscal and military obligations of the civil 
population. The best emperors, the Isaurians and the 
Macedonians, were so well aware of the danger that they 
vigorously opposed the extension of great ecclesiastical 

36 


RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


properties, forbade individuals to transmit their goods to 
clerks and monks, seized the domains which the clergy had 
usurped, forbade them to acquire any more immovable 
property, and tried to submit their estates to the common 
charges by laicizing a part of them and redistributing them 
in the form of military benefices. The Byzantine state 
maintained intact the principle that the Church was only a 
temporary depository of the landed property which it held, 
and that the government had the right to dip at will into 
this great reserve fund for the public need. But in practice, 
anxious to keep on good terms with a power so redoubtable, 
the state often left an open field to the enterprises of the 
Church, with the result that the latter succeeded in getting 
the greater part of the land into its clutches. Thus great 
estates were built up, such as those held by the sixty-two 
convents of Byzantium ; by the monastery of Neamoni, which 
numbered 500 monks and owned a fifth of Chios; by the 
monastery of Patmos, which owned the whole island of that 
name, besides lands in Crete; by the three famous monastic 
communities of Athos, enriched by so many gifts; and by 
the celebrated Abbey of Monte Cassino, whose possessions 
stretched all over Southern Italy, and whose abbot was the 
peer of the Princes of Benevento, Capua, and Spoleto. The 
domains of the Church were vast centres of cultivation, with 
a whole personnel of administrators, inspectors (sacellarii), 
receivers, treasurers (logathetat), stewards (cconomoi), 
deacons; with walled and fortified central buildings, 
hospitals, inns, cellars, and industrial workshops, round 
which dwelt the population of colon. 

Side by side with the great ecclesiastical estate there 
developed, after the crisis of the fifth and sixth centuries was 
past, the great aristocratic estate. This extension of lay 
property took place in proportion as the high civil and 
military functionaries, exarchs and strategoi, soon classed 
together under the general title of archons, profited by the 
authority enjoyed by the administrative nobility, and identi- 
fied their interests and ambitions with those of the heads 
of the great local families and the rich landed proprietors 
(plousioi, potentes, dynatoi), who exercised considerable 
social influence over their estates. The former, enriched by 
their endowments, attributed to themselves not only public 

37 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


authority, but also an hereditary property in the benefices 
which had been granted to them; they added to their pos- 
sessions and their dependants by forcing the people under 
their administration to accept or to solicit their patronage 
and to become their clients. The latter sought to add the 
prerogatives of sovereignty to the practical authority which 
they wielded over those who dwelt on their estates. Little 
by little in the East, as in the West, there was organized a 
territorial nobility, whose power was based on the possession 
of great domains or massx, which were classed apart in the 
land register from the reign of Leo VI (ninth century). 
Ceaselessly increased by marriage, by purchase, by the 
usurpation of public and communal lands or of small hold- 
ings, as well as by the generalization of patronage, which 
transformed free into dependent land, to the detriment of 
small proprietors who found themselves in debt or in need 
of protection, the territorial possessions of the aristocracy 
became almost as great as those of the Church. The 
emperors, who feared the effect upon their own power and 
upon society in general of the growth of these great noble 
properties, displayed, notably under the Isaurian and Mace- 
donian Dynasties, a rare energy in hindering the process. 
The Isaurians in the eighth century by their Rural Code 
forbade patronage and annulled usurpations made at the 
expense of small proprietors. The Macedonians prohibited 
the alienation of domains by the consent of the poorer class 
to the profit of the great, annulled contracts made under 
fraud or violence, and even abolished in this connection the 
forty years’ prescription which covered usurpations. They 
renewed the prohibition of patronage and annulled all acqui- 
sitions made to the prejudice of the state or of military 
benefices. They vigorously defended the interests of the 
central power and the middle classes, which were menaced 
by the revolts of the great lords. 

At times in the course of this duel it seemed as though 
the power of the nobility was about to be cast down. But 
the aristocracy profited by political crises and by the weak- 
ness of certain reigns, in order to restore its authority. 
Though it did not succeed in organizing an independent 
feudal power, after the fashion of the West, and though it 
knew neither the hierarchy nor the characteristic institutions 

38 


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a 

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RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


of the feudal contract, suzerainty, vassalage, homage, and 
remained legally dependent upon the central power, never- 
theless it had by the end of the early Middle Ages acquired 
at least a quasi-plenitude of sovereignty in its domains. The 
great Byzantine landowner was master on his lands and 
exercised jurisdiction over the peasantry. The government 
obtained the execution of its orders through him, and from 
being the mandatory of the prince he tended continually to 
become a sort of local sovereign. He had his clients, thanks 
to patronage and commendation, and even his vassals, thanks 
to the general practice of granting benefices. He continued 
his usurpations at the expense of those small proprietors who 
refused to become his clients, and he even brought about the 
desertion of the imperial service by a number of soldiers and 
officers, who in the tenth century formed a new category of 
knights (kaballarioi), to whom the great nobles granted 
possessions in return for military service. 

Thus, while they lacked full political independence, the 
Byzantine aristocracy possessed all that social and economic 
power which comes of the possession of the soil and a number 
of subjects or vassals. Not only in Asia Minor, the chief centre 
of the aristocratic class, but also in the European provinces, 
great lords, such as the scions of the Phocas, Sclerus, Botani- 
ates, Ducas, Comnenus, Paleologus, Bryennius, and Canta- 
cuzene families, held immense _ properties, sometimes 
scattered, sometimes concentrated in a single holding. 
From the fifth century a great lady, Paula, was mistress 
of the territory of Nicopolis in Epirus. Five centuries later 
a great Byzantine noble had no less than sixty domains, with 
600 oxen, 100 plough teams, 880 horses, 18,000 sheep. A 
woman of high rank, Danielis, owned eighty massx in the 
Peloponnesus alone; she had immense herds and an army 
of slaves, 3,000 of whom she was able to enfranchise by a 
stroke of the pen; when she travelled she took with her 
800 porters for her litters; she had vast hoards of coined 
money, vessels, and jewels; she seemed, indeed, the real — 
queen of the Morea. Personages such as the Eunuch Basil 
and Simeon Ampelas were as celebrated in that age as are 
the American millionaires of our own day. In this world 
of great nobles were to be found proud, ambitious, turbulent 
lords, learned men, good administrators, excellent generals, 

89 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


sometimes even ardent patriots, animated by religious and 
monarchical ideals. They formed a veritable élite, vastly 
superior in culture, intelligence, and political aptitude to the 
aristocracy of the West. They dwelt by choice, so far as 
their duties at court or at war allowed them, in the midst 
of their domains, surrounded by their vassals and soldiers, 
superintending the work of their population of labourers, 
and surrounded by a crowd of domestics. Their dwellings, 
half palaces and half fortresses, were elegantly decorated, 
spacious, and beautiful, furnished with huge apartments and 
gynzcea reserved for their women, and in them they exer- 
cised an open-handed hospitality. There they displayed all 
their luxury, their embroidered robes, their gold plate, gems, 
enamels, and precious silks, their table groaning under 
abundant foods, their stables full of fine horses and 
carriages. They loved the pleasures of intelligence no less 
than those of the chase and of travel, than the lust of battle, 
or the pride of rule. In fine, they formed a highly gifted 
class, which lacked only an open character, a high standard 
of morality, and an upright spirit. 

The lesser nobility also lived upon their rural estates, 
which were small or of medium size, and moderately well 
stocked. They made their lands prosperous by their own 
efforts and the aid of a few servants, and only by dint of 
hard work and severe economy. Country gentlemen, such 
as Cecaumenus, who has left such curious Memoirs, were 
not rare in the East. They had large families, loved the land 
passionately, and obtained good revenues from it. ‘* Culti- 
vate corn, wine, and cattle,’’ the wise Cecaumenus was wont 
to say, ‘‘ and you will be happy.’’? They had little taste for 
court life, and found their real satisfaction in family life, in 
the exploitation of their rustic domains, and in the practice of 
solid virtues of piety and charity. After the Church, it was 
this aristocratic class, made up of the greater and lesser 
nobility, which played the most active social part. 

_Despite the progress made by the territorial power of the 
Church and the nobility, small free ownership maintained 
itself far more successfully in the East than in the West, and 
greatly to the advantage of the equilibrium of Byzantine 
society. Side by side with the urban bourgeoisie, which 
possessed more or less extensive properties within the 

40 


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RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


banlieue of the towns, there was in effect in the empire a 
middle class of free rural proprietors, who still held a con- 
siderable portion of the land. In the front rank of these 
were the soldiers (stratiotai), whom the state provided with 
fiefs or benefices out of the public domains, and conquered 
or confiscated estates, charged with perpetual military 
service upon themselves and their male descendants. In the 
Peloponnesus there were nearly 8,000 of these fiefs, and in 
the tenth century they numbered 58,000. These small 
domains remained the property of the state, but the military 
small holders enjoyed the usufruct thereof, either cultivating 
them themselves or arranging for their cultivation. They 
never incurred the loss of their estates unless they ceased to 
fulfil their military obligations, or were condemned for an in- 
_ famous crime, or had allowed the value of the fief to become 
disparaged by bad cultivation. They were not allowed to 
alienate their domains, but they could transmit them to their 
families, and exercised real proprietary rights over them. 
After these soldier-owners came other small free pro- 
prietors, who had the full ownership of goods, gardens, 
fields, vines, and meadows, which they exploited alone or 
with the help of coloni, or in association with métayers, who 
took a third part of the produce of the estate. They were 
bound to pay the state taxes, the clerical tithe, and some- 
times also a few rents to great men. They had rights over 
the common woods and pastures, and, grouped into agri- 
cultural communes, they governed themselves through their 
assemblies and notables (primates), under the control of 
imperial agents. The state, which valued them as its most 
docile taxpayers and its best military recruits, protected 
them against the usurpation and violence of officials and of 
great lords. It allowed them judicial assistance if they 
experienced any difficulty in the peaceful enjoyment of their 
estates, and was at pains to enforce the restitution of pos- 
sessions unjustly taken from them. It granted them a right 
of pre-emption (protimesis) in the acquisition of goods which 
had belonged to members of their class, and even secured 
the succession to their lands, if these fell into disinheritance, 
to collateral relations (cognates). Along struggle was waged, 
in the course of which the imperial power succeeded several 
times in saving the two classes of military beneficiaries and 
41 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


small free proprietors from the perennial attacks of the clergy 
and nobility. The Isaurian and Macedonian emperors in 
particular succeeded in restoring and partly liberating free 
ownership, which maintained its existence for four centuries 
longer than in the West. It was only in the long run, and 
after innumerable vicissitudes, that the invincible tenacity 
of the great lay and ecclesiastical proprietors prevailed over 
the resistance of the small independent landowners, and it 
was not until the eleventh century that most of the holders 
of military benefices tended to become the vassals of the 
great landed nobles. On their side, the free peasants fell into 
pauperism, bent beneath the weight of public taxes, and 
living under the constant menace of their powerful neigh- 
bours, often in debt, possessing neither capital nor credit, 
and without the means of tiding over crises in production and 
increasing the revenue of their lands. They formed thence- 
forth that class of the penetes, or ‘* poor,’’ who were obliged 
one by one to resign themselves to the loss first of their free 
properties, then of their free persons. Of the numerous 
middle class, which had been for 500 years the sinews of the 
state and the best instrument of agricultural labour, only a 
remnant remained. 

The great majority of the inhabitants of the countryside 
in the Eastern Empire consisted, at the end of the early 
Middle Ages, of coloni and serfs. Indeed, at the same time 
that the small free proprietors were growing weaker and 
finally succumbing, the various forms of free labour were 
also disappearing one by one. The agricultural wage-earners 
or day labourers (misthotai), who still in the fifth and sixth 
centuries hired themselves out for the cultivation of the 
large and even of the small estates, in return for a wage 
(misthos), were soon eliminated in a state of society in which 
the landowners preferred to have recourse to the services of 
more stable cultivators, whom they kept upon their land by 
means of long contracts, and in dependence upon themselves. 
For similar motives tenant-farmers and free métayers, bound 
to the landowners by temporary leases, stipulating as a rule 
for the payment of a fixed rent of a half or a third of the 
landed revenue, were less and less employed. They were 
obliged, like the day labourers, to emigrate to the towns or 
to swell the ranks of coloni and serfs. 

42 


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RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


It is true that rural slavery tended at the same time to 
disappear. Although it was still recruited from time to time 
by commerce, with the intermittent toleration of the ruling 
power, it was discredited by the campaign waged against it, 
in the name of the Christian Church and the dignity of 
humanity, by bishops, monks, emperors, great men, and 
thinkers, heirs to the humanitarian or the religious tradition 
of the fourth century. Moreover, slave labour gave very 
inferior results. Imperial legislation forbade free men to 
enter into slavery, and allowed slaves to intermarry with 
persons of free condition, an act which in itself emancipated 
them ; it liberated those who joined the ranks of the clergy 
or the army, prohibited the sale of slaves, and recognized 
their right to personal property; it favoured and multiplied 
enfranchisements. Slavery was limited to domestic service. 
Nevertheless, although the law had abolished all distinction 
between the freedman (libertus) and the freeman (ingenuus), 
very few men of slave birth succeeded in attaining full liberty, 
which would, in point of fact, have conferred upon them no 
practical means of independence in the economic order. On 
the contrary, they contributed in great numbers to swell the 
crowd of coloni and serfs of the glebe (adscriptitit). 

The class of coloni and of serfs was, indeed, made up of 
diverse elements—small free proprietors fallen upon evil days, 
wage-earning labourers, métayers, tenant-farmers, enfran- 
chised slaves—all of them forced to enter into a contract of 
strict dependence, as a means of making a livelihood by the 
cultivation of the soil. The colonate, which had already 
been formed during the last centuries of the Roman Empire, 
became general under the Byzantine Empire, and grew ever 
larger as newcomers arrived to swell its ranks—insolvent 
debtors, vagabonds attached by law to the domains, indi- 
viduals destitute of resources, strangers (advenx) without 
possessions venturing into other men’s lands, prisoners of 
war parcelled out among public or private estates. The 
coloni were inscribed upon the capitation registers, so that 
the state might levy the tax due from them. In the estate 
books of each domain they were classed with the farm 
implements. Established upon the soil, they cultivated it 
without having any rights of property over it, and paid a 
large part of the landed revenue to the landowner in the 

43 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


form of cens or tribute, and payments, called canons, in 
money or in kind. But in return they enjoyed a perpetual 
usufruct, transmissible and hereditary, in the holding which 
they cultivated. 

Nevertheless, there developed among the colont two 
classes of cultivators. The most favoured class, whose 
members continued to bear the name of coloni during the 
first centuries of the Middle Ages, possessed most of the 
prerogatives of civil liberty, such as freedom to contract 
marriage without condition as to domicile, full marital 
and paternal authority, and testamentary capacity. The 
less favoured class—that of the semi-servile cultivators, 
who were known as adscriptitu or enapographoi, and became 
very soon merged into the class of serfs (servi rustict or 
paroiko1)—was already submitted to galling or heavy re- 
strictions as to marriage and the transmission of hold- 
ings and personal property, while at the same time its 
obligations had increased in number and it had become 
fixed to the soil, without any guarantee against changes of 
domicile. Little by little, despite the prohibitions of the 
Rural Code (eighth century) the colont themselves lost the 
right of leaving the domain. They became approximated to 
the adscriptitu, and the two categories of the colonate were, 
during the ninth and tenth centuries, merged into a single 
class of serfs of the glebe. Serfdom, then, appeared with its 
true characteristics—the obligation of the cultivator to dwell 
on the land and to farm it, and the obligation of the land- 
owner not to expel the tenant, nor to increase the payments 
due from him. Over and above the serfs there still remained 
in the East, at the end of the early Middle Ages, coloni, 
whose condition was more or less similar to that of the 
villeins of the West. These were the mortitai, who had 
preserved a number of the prerogatives of freemen, had the 
right to leave their holdings, could not be dispossessed after 
having enjoyed possession during thirty years, and paid only 
a tenth of the harvest to the landowner. But they were an 
infinitesimal minority in comparison with the great mass of 
serfs or paroikoi, among whom were to be found almost all 
the inhabitants of the country districts. These, subject to 
invariable rents and _ strictly determined services, had, 
nevertheless, no guarantee against an illegitimate extension 

44 


RECONSTRUCTION IN EASTERN EMPIRE 


of their burdens, or against ill-treatment by their lord. They 
were, moreover, obliged to punish corvées in order to 
cultivate the lord’s demesne, and to perform carting and 
other services. 

In the East the transformation of agricultural labour was 
accomplished in the same manner, and by reason of the 
same economic and social necessities, as in the West. But 
the disappearance of the small free owners was much less 
rapid and complete there, and the establishment of serfdom 
was compensated for by the disappearance of slavery. Serf- 
dom itself was counterbalanced by the admission of a 
right of perpetual usufruct, vested in the cultivator 
of the soil, and by the stability of rural life. For the 
rest, we have but little evidence as to the material and 
moral condition of the agricultural populations of the 
Byzantine Empire. It seems to have varied greatly from 
period to period, being very hard in the first two centuries 
of the early Middle Ages, and easier and more bearable in 
the last three. It varied also according to the landowners. 
In general tenants on the estates of the Church and of the 
state enjoyed a superior protection and were allowed 
privileges hardly known upon the property of the nobility. 
The Byzantine peasants lived sometimes grouped into 
villages (choria), sometimes scattered in farms and hamlets 
(aroi, argiridia), sometimes in fortified burgs (castra), 
whence the men and beasts went forth each morning to the 
fields. They were content with houses of roughly piled 
stones, of pisé, and of thatch. Their food was frugal; milk, 
cheese, eggs, vegetables, and fruit were the foundation, and 
to these they added fish and a little meat when they were 
able. They lived a narrow life without horizon, in which the 
chief part was played by religion, superstition, the need to 
gain their daily bread, and the cares of family life; they held 
themselves satisfied with their lot, if they had not to suffer 
too severely from war and natural scourges, and from the 
rapacity of the treasury and the landlords. In Byzantine 
society it was their disciplined labour, under the direction 
of a state conscious of its tutelary mission, the guarantor of 
order and public peace, and the promoter of colonization 
and production, which gave to the Eastern Empire its chief 


economic supremacy. 
45 


CHAPTER IV 


THE INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE 
DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES. 


INDUSTRIAL and commercial activity also contributed to 
bring about the economic supremacy of Byzantium, as well 
as to enrich the state. Indeed, urban economy, completely 
shattered in the countries of the West, remained intact and 
even developed in the Eastern Empire. 

Industry, which was far more advanced in the East than 
in the West, was centred in the towns. It is true that there 
were upon the estates of the nobility and the Church rural 
workshops in which servile men or women laboured. Some of 
these, such as those on the domain of Danielis at Patras, 
even produced objects of luxury, purple tissues, fine cloths, 
and carpets, while those of the great monasteries sometimes 
specialized in industrial arts, mosaic work, illumination, and 
painting, under the direction of the monks. Moreover, family 
industry was very widespread among the rural population, 
both free and unfree, and it sufficed for the essential needs 
of daily life. But urban industry, which had fallen so low in 
the West, survived and prospered in the East. It was carried 
on either in the small workshops of entrepreneurs and of 
free artisans, or in the great state factories, where workmen 
laboured who were forced to follow their profession from 
father to son. The imperial laws or novels, and the collec- 
tion of police regulations called the Book of the Prefect (of 
Byzantium), which was drawn up in the tenth century, show 
how numerous and how active were the industrial corpora- 
tions (systemata) of the great towns of the empire, heirs of 
the associations (collegia, artes, scol#) of the Roman period. 
In them were grouped together both industrial workers and 
traders; notaries were to be found side by side with 
bankers, money-changers and jewellers, spice merchants side 
by side with butchers, pork-butchers, and bakers. Inn- 
keepers, wine-sellers, cattle-dealers, and fishmongers rubbed 
elbows with horse-dealers and fishermen, perfumers and 
candle-makers with tanners and soap-makers. The most 

46 


HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE 


numerous of these corporations were concerned with the 
textile industries, sellers of raw silk, silk-spinners, silk, wool, 
and cloth-dyers, merchants who dealt in Syrian stuffs and all 
sorts of fine fabrics. Other professions—for instance, lock- 
smiths, millers, painters, marble and mosaic workers—were 
grouped into unprivileged crafts. The corporative régime 
was applied, above all, to the luxury trades and to those of 
primary necessity. Furthermore, there were imperial manu- 
factures, the personnel of which worked solely to furnish the 
needs of the army and the imperial palaces. 

The privileged or official corporations and the free crafts 
occupied special quarters in the great towns—at Byzantium, 
for example, the central street and the environs of the 
Forum. Workroom and shop were combined, as in the 
souks and Levantine bazaars. An incessant movement, a 
ceaseless hum of activity, prevailed there. The state often 
accorded special privileges to craftsmen, artisans, and 
merchants; it exempted sailors, parchment-makers, and 
dyers of purple from military service, while most of the 
members of crafts received a partial exemption from taxa- 
tion. All the corporations had their monopolies, their meet- 
ings, heads, dignitaries, and brotherhoods. No one was 
admitted to mastership until he had paid a high fee, served 
his apprenticeship, and given proofs of professional skill. 
But in return for the advantages thus conceded the state 
exercised the strictest supervision over the corporations. 
Byzantium was the paradise not only of monopoly and 
privilege, but also of regulation. Placed under the authority 
of the prefect of the town, who regulated the admission of 
candidates, every official corporation had to submit to 
administrative rules, minutely regulating the methods by 
which it obtained its provisions, reserving to each corpora- 
tion the right of purchasing raw materials, regulating its 
relations with foreign merchants, limiting the quantity of 
purchases, and fixing prices, days, and places of sale, and 
the tariff of profits allowed to the masters. The same regu- 
lation was also applied to the technique of manufacture, in 
order to secure the quality of the goods. State agents 
entered the workrooms and shops and examined merchandise 
and account books. From time to time the governing power 
even tried to fix a maximum wage, and also the price of 

47 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


articles of luxury. This disastrous experiment, which was 
inaugurated in the time of Justinian, was several times 
renewed. The state, an interfering protector and a sus- 
picious inquisitor, endeavoured to regulate every side of the 
corporate organization, and left no room for economic 
freedom. But the members of the corporations were free- 
men, citizens, furnished with monopolies and privileges 
which guaranteed them against competition and gave them 
a stable existence and the respect of their fellows. Sub- 


mitting meekly, they bowed themselves beneath the exigences 


of the imperial treasury or the tiresome vagaries of the 
administration. 

In spite of its defects, this régime gave to urban industry 
a strong protective armour and a high technical standard, 
although it was almost inaccessible to progress and remained 
inferior in vitality and energy to that which the emancipation 
of the twelfth century was destined to bestow upon the West. 
In addition, besides the official corporations, the East bene- 
fited by the development of numerous free crafts, which were 
grouped into associations in innumerable large towns and 
small, and which included the mass of men engaged in 
industry and trade on a small scale. In these groups, which 
were submitted only to the general economic regulations, 
individual initiative and free labour had more scope. Both 
corporations and free crafts, by their activity and their skill, 
gave to the East a front rank in industrial production. 

Technical skill and variety of form won for Byzantine 
industry during six centuries its unrivalled supremacy in the 
world. Its workers produced for a foreign as well as for a 
home market, and furnished the West as well as the East 
with goods. They excelled, above all, in articles of luxury, 
wherein they displayed a rare ingenuity and elegance. 
Byzantine industry then occupied the place now taken by 
French industry, without having to meet the same competi- 
tion. The Byzantine Empire was famous for the number 
and excellence of its manufactures of precious fabrics, par- 
ticularly its silks and fine cloths. Out of the imperial 
factories came those splendid stuffs, dyed purple and violet, 
yellow and green, often worked with designs and adorned 
with embroidery, sometimes woven with gold or silver thread, 
which were used to make vestments and robes used in cere- 

48 


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4 
4 
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: 


HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE 


monies sacred or profane, and which were eagerly sought by 
princes, prelates, and the wealthy classes all over Europe. 
Plain silks, marvellous stuffs of the most delicate shades and 
of highly finished and varied texture, imperial purples and 
cloth of gold and of silver, orfray work, samites, cendals, 
baldequins, cyclatons, chrysoclaves, and yet others, striped 
or mingled with metal thread or goat’s hair, went to swell 
the treasuries of churches and the elegant rooms of the 
aristocracy. It was to the Byzantine workshops that men 
came for fine trimmings, ornaments, and galons. There was 
an enormous market for such things, and the export trade in 
them was so active that manufacturing centres such as 
Byzantium, Thessalonica, Patras, Corinth, Athens, and 
Thebes enjoyed a celebrity similar to that which is to-day 
enjoyed by Paris and Lyons. Beautiful fine woollens, 
adorned with rich embroidery, were also manufactured, 
notably at Patras, while in Pontus, Macedonia, and Naples 
fine linen goods were produced. The Byzantines excelled 
in the art of tapestry; their hangings, made of brocaded or 
damasked stuffs, and adorned with designs of rare perfection, 
their carpets which imitated panther skins, their worked 
leather, their purple-dyed skins were unrivalled and every- 
where in demand. 

Past masters in mining and metallurgy, they exploited 
the seams of iron, copper, and lead in Asia Minor and Eastern 
Kurope. They sent forth to the Mediterranean countries 
their marbles from Proconnesus, Attica, Thessaly, Laconia, 
and the Archipelago, their salt from the salt-marshes of 
Southern Italy and Meesia. They had factories of arms at 
Thessalonica, at Nicopolis in Epirus, in Eubea, at Athens 
and Thebes, in the Peloponnese, where they manufactured 
bows and arrows, lances, and cuirasses, sometimes beauti- 
fully engraved and decorated. From their workshops in 
Byzantium and Thessalonica came also marvellous shrines 
and reliquaries, altars and crosses, sacred vases, censers, 
dalmatics, jewelled ornaments glittering with rubies and 
pearls, precious vessels and silverwork of every kind. From 
the sixth century they brought the art of enamelling to a 
triumphant height, and their beautiful cloisonné and cham- 
plevé enamel soon spread far and wide. Their engravers 
and founders worked in bronze, which they inlaid with silver, 

49 E 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


executing those ornamented plaques, fountains, and monu- 
mental gates of which admirable specimens remain in St. 
Sophia and at Pavia and Rome. Their ivory-workers made 
charming carved coffers, diptyches, and covers for the 
gospels, all in the most exquisite taste. They raised to an 
unexampled degree of perfection all the decorative arts, 
stained and filigreed and enamelled glasswork, mosaics, and 
porcelain ; and veritable masterpieces issued from their work- 
shops in Byzantium, Salonica, Ravenna, and Southern Italy. 
These masters of elegance finally furnished the world with 
every sort of article of luxury, perfumes, papyrus, manu- 
scripts, psalters, decorated and illuminated gospels, which 
their laboratories and workrooms alone knew how to make 
or to adorn. It was due to this superiority in industry, no 
less than to the wealth which they drew from agriculture, 
that the Byzantines kept their commercial supremacy for 
so long. 

Indeed, in the early Middle Ages the Byzantine Empire 
enjoyed a monopoly of the international commerce of 
Christendom, which continued to be centred in the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. Byzantium lay at the meeting-place of all the 
great trade routes, both maritime and territorial, of Western 
Asia and Europe, and possessed, moreover, a regular system 
of land and sea transport and highly perfected methods of 
exchange, which the West lacked. The empire was thus 
able to carry on both an export and a carrying trade, and her 
commerce could attain a width of scope which was impossible 
for the Western states. For 600 years it continued to flourish 
incomparably, and the market and Customs dues alone at 
Constantinople brought into the imperial treasury in the 
eleventh century an annual revenue of 7,300,000 bezants 
of gold. 

Nevertheless, the commercial policy of the state, inspired 
by old-fashioned traditions or by fiscal motives, was a great 
hindrance to trade. The government retained the monopoly 
of certain articles of commerce, notably of the corn and silk 
trades. It prohibited the export of various goods, such as 
luxury textiles and precious metals, as well as of numerous 
foreign manufactures. Other articles—for instance, the soaps 
of Marseilles—were merely burdened with import duties. 
There were further duties on export. In the interior taxes 

50 


HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE 


were laid upon purchases and sales; they were fiscal rather 
than economic in character, but they were infinitely trouble- 
some by reason of their multiplicity, which was aggravated by 
the behaviour of the tax-collectors. But the gravest mistake 
made by the Byzantine Empire was to leave to foreigners 
the virtual monopoly of the import and export trade, instead 
of stimulating the efforts of its own subjects, who became 
increasingly idle and passive. The emperors had thought 
thus to inspire these foreigners, whom commercial necessity 
had drawn to the shores of the Bosphorus, with a respect for 
the greatness and wealth of Byzantium; but they were un- 
wittingly preparing the way for the commercial development 
of the Western barbarians, whom they both despised and 
feared. In the long run they paralyzed national commerce 
and reduced it to the réle of a passive broker, while they 
made the fortune of the young commercial nations who 
served them as intermediaries. Byzantine policy both 
needed and mistrusted foreigners. Thus it welcomed them 
with exemptions and privileges, but forced them into rivalry 
one with another by the unequal treatment which it accorded 
to them. It multiplied inquisitorial measures, formalities, 
confiscations, perquisites, fines, and vexatious regulations 
directed against them; but it could not wear out their 
patience, which was rooted in the love of gain. 

In spite, however, of this shortsighted economic policy 
and this rigid regulation, applied by a swarm of Customs 
officials and judges, the Byzantine Empire possessed in some 
ways a superior commercial organization, well fitted for the 
development of trade. From the beginning of the Middle 
Ages it inaugurated a régime of international money, a gold 
standard. This was the bezant, or Byzantine gold piece, the 
type of good money, usually of invariable value, the standard 
coin in all the markets of the world. Although credit was 
hampered by restrictive and complicated legislation, and 
money-lending at interest (under the influence of the 
Church) was hardly distinguished from usury, Byzantine com- 
merce, thanks to the abundance of movable wealth, could 
raise money at the moderate rate of 8 to 12 per cent., and 
lower still in the tenth century, a thing unknown in the rest 
of Europe. The law limited the rate of interest, but there 
was no permanent restriction upon money loans. The 

51 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


number and social importance of the money-changers and 
bankers at Byzantium, where they had a powerful corpora- 
tion, are sufficient indication of the development of a money 
market there. The Byzantines forestalled the Italians in the 
use of the bill of exchange, or the credit notes which were 
its equivalent. Traffic was active on the land routes; the 
old Roman roads of the Balkan Peninsula and Southern 
Italy were repaired or completed, innumerable bridges were 
built or rebuilt over the rivers; wells, cisterns, and shelters 
were made on the caravan routes, and although Justinian 
was so ill-advised as to suppress the public postal service, 
the Byzantines usually favoured transport. They attracted 
merchants from all nations to the great fairs of Byzantium 
and Thessalonica, which enjoyed valuable exemptions and 
privileges. Though they established a tiresome system of 
regulation over markets, they did ensure the security and 
regularity of business transactions. Though merchant 
strangers were obliged to reside in special quarters and 
submitted to administrative surveillance, and though some 
of them, such as the Russians, were allowed to stay only for 
a limited period, the majority were permitted to reside 
permanently within the empire, to form privileged com- 
munities, and to have their own consuls. The Bulgarians 
themselves benefited by this favour. To the Italian men of 
business, subjects of the empire who came from Amalfi, 
Naples, Geta, Venice, or Genoa, Byzantium extended a still 
warmer welcome and permitted them to establish counting- 
houses in the ports. The Venetians henceforth had their 
quarter near the Golden Horn, and the Genoese at Galata. 
Important exemptions and_ privileges facilitated their 
operations. 

An intelligent and active policy sought to open foreign 
markets, if not to the native traders, who, with the exception 
of the Syrians, were unwilling to expatriate themselves, at 
least to Byzantine trade, by means of numerous treaties with 
foreign states. The empire knew how to keep up and fit out 
its ports, to organize labour services and corporations of 
dockers. It favoured sea commerce, practised insurance and 
loans on bottomry, and its code of commercial law assisted 
the organization of shipping companies, which divided profits 
and losses among themselves. The Byzantine Nautical Code, 

52 


HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE 


the work of Leo III, and an adaptation of the ancient laws 
of Rhodes, was the first body of commercial regulations 
which prevailed in medieval Christendom. It was under the 
inspiration of Byzantium that the Customs of the Italian 
republics of Trani and Amalfi were drawn up in the eleventh 
century. The Byzantine mercantile marine, easily recruited 
among the coastal populations of the Archipelago, who were 
long inured to maritime traffic, was the mistress of the 
Mediterranean, where its flag was everywhere to be seen. A 
vigilant police made war upon piracy and kept the sea safe 
against Dalmatians, Varangians, and Moslems. 

An immense movement of exchange, the most active in 
the civilized world, was thus centred in the Byzantine 
Empire. Thence, at first through the medium of colonies 
of Syrian merchants, ancestors of the Levantines, then 
through that of the men of Amalfi, the Venetians, the 
Genoese, and the Armenians, there spread throughout both 
East and West the products of the Byzantine soil and manu- 
factures—beautiful silks, fine cloths, pieces of goldsmiths’ 
work, carved ivories, delicate glass, onyx cups, chased and 
enamelled vases, mosaics, fruits, delicate wines, and other 
choice and luxurious articles. By means of Byzantine com- 
merce, fed by caravans which came from the ends of Asia 
and Africa, and also through the Arab and Turkish 
merchants established by imperial permission at Constanti- 
nople, Europe received the precious merchandise of Asia 
Minor, Chaldea, Assyria and Persia, of India and the Far 
East, and of Egypt and the African lands; spices, scents, 
precious stones, rare metals, sandal-wood, musk and camphor, 
raw silk and cotton, silken and fine woollen fabrics, muslins, 
and carpets. From an early date treaties of commerce were 
concluded with the Moslem powers to facilitate these trades. 
From the barbarous regions round the Caspian Sea, Turkes- 
tan, and the lands of the Volga and Dnieper, by the medium 
of the Greek republic of Kherson, or even directly by the 
hands of Varangian, Bulgar, Turkish, and Khazar merchants 
whom she attracted to the shores of the Bosphorus, Con- 
stantinople obtained a mass of natural products—corn, salt 
fish, wax, skins, furs, salt, honey, caviare, the skins of 
animals, amber, and slaves. From the eighth century Slav 
and Bulgar and Magyar traders swarmed to Thessalonica 

58 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


and Byzantium along the rivers and the great trade routes, 
to retail their flax, honey, salt fish, cattle, skins, leather, 
furs, and half-worked iron and steel. From Italy, Germany, 
Spain, and Gaul there came to the Byzantine ports and 
entrepots metals raw and worked, raw wool, hempen or 
linen cloths, coarse woollen goods, and rough carpets. Like 
innumerable tributaries, all these streams of commerce con- 
verged upon the vast empire to swell the great movement of 
commerce which was concentrated within its walls. 

The ports offered a spectacle of extraordinary activity. 
It was commerce which, together with industry, maintained 
that town life, which was a privilege preserved by the East. 
alone. The Byzantine Empire was covered with great 
industrial and mercantile cities, the animation of which 
astounded visitors from the West. Greatest of all was Con- 
stantinople, the finest city in the world, ‘* sovereign over all 
others,’’ as Villehardouin hailed her; ‘‘ the richest city in 
the world, which holdeth two-thirds of all the wealth of the 
universe,’’? as Robert de Clari said. Constantinople was the 
entrepot of world commerce; ships and caravans made their 
way towards her roadsteads, and in the bazaars of her main 
streets the products of the whole world were to be seen 
heaped up; her quays and her docks overflowed with mer- 
chandise. A forest of ships lay alongside her quays, and a 
crepitating mass of people filled her quarters. In this home 
of wealth and luxury, adorned with all the gifts of civiliza- 
tion, lived a million men, the greatest agglomeration of 
inhabitants to be found anywhere in the Middle Ages. As 
many as 70,000 barbarians were to be found there. It was 
a cosmopolitan city, and underneath it was a Levantine city ; 
but these facts did not affect its air of elegance and luxury, 
wherein business went side by side with the cult of, intelli- 
gence and art. The empire possessed other cities, which 
surpassed all those in the rest of Christendom—Heracleia, 
Selymbria, Rodosto on the Thracian coast; Thessalonica, 
the second metropolis and port of the empire, ‘‘ one of the 
strongest and richest towns in Christendom,’’ as_ the 
Crusaders witnessed, where dwelt 500,000 souls; Negrepont, 
Athens, Patras, Nauplia, and Corinth in Greece; Corfu, 
Durazzo, Avlona, Nicopolis at the mouth of the Ionian or 
Adriatic Seas; not to speak of the Crimean republic of 

54 


‘ 


HEGEMONY OF THE EASTERN EMPIRE 


Kherson and the Dalmatian cities, such as Ragusa and 
Spoleto, which were under the protectorate of Byzantium. 
Inland in the Balkan Peninsula Adrianople and Chrysopolis 
were prosperous. The Byzantine domination made the 
fortunes of the cities of Southern Italy, Bari and Reggio, 
Tarentum and Salerno, Brindisi and Naples, which rivalled 
each other in wealth and prosperity; above all, of Amalfi, 
which from the ninth to the eleventh century dominated the 
Western Mediterranean. Finally, it was under the auspices 
of Byzantium that Venice, a humble settlement of fishermen, 
became in 600 years the queen of the Adriatic and of 
Mediterranean commerce and heir to the splendour of 
Ravenna. 

Everywhere in the cities, below the aristocracy of 
senators, high dignitaries, and great landowners, who dis- 
played all the luxury of an elegant and refined existence, 
lived an active and intelligent bourgeoisie of bankers, in- 
dustrialists, and merchants. These, together with the 
master craftsmen and the small tradesmen, able men and 
greedy for gain, formed a middle class which was one of 
the chief forces of Byzantine society and enriched it by its 
labour. This class grew without ceasing. It took the place 
of the curiales of the Roman period, who had disappeared in 
the troubles of the sixth century; and in the tenth and 
eleventh centuries, associating its interests with those of the 
landed nobility, who were very willing to live in the towns, 
it won a share in municipal government, elected its repre- 
sentatives (judices, boni homines) to assist in urban 
administration, and obtained economic and financial privi- 
leges. This class, which had the faults inherent in a constant 
struggle for gain, could also display powerful social virtues 
such as the love of work, economy, a simple and regular life, 
and the practice of charity. The lower rank of artisans, 
grouped in their corporations and fraternities, formed, 
together with the middle class, the vital element of the 
Byzantine cities. It was to them that the fame of Eastern 
industry was due; they were intelligent and hard-working, 
and they knew their own worth. At Byzantium men had 
seen a workman, Leo the Isaurian, bind the diadem upon 
his brow and found a dynasty. Corporative life gave them 
a certain taste for independence and a sense of solidarity. 

55 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Writers who described the life of these small folk of the 
workshops depicted them full of life and vivacity and sallies, 
fond of pleasure, content with little, devoted to their family 
life, and alternately turbulent and docile, sceptical and 
mocking, devout and fanatical, mobile and exuberant, 
always easy to lead, if those in authority were able to 
manage them without brutality and to ensure them plenty 
of cheap food and amusements. It was only at Constan- 


tinople and at Thessalonica that this lower class, at bottom ~ 


honest and hard-working, and sometimes even showing a 
certain refinement, intelligence, and sentiment, suffered from 
contact with the proletariat of idlers and adventurers, who 
swarmed in the underworld of these great cities. It was these 
troublesome elements—parasites—who were, turn by turn, 
cowardly, seditious, bloodthirsty, and fierce, who gave the 
Byzantine townsfolk the bad reputation from which they 
suffered for so long. In reality the prosperity of industry 
and commerce in Eastern society was as much the work of 
the free urban artisans as it was of the intelligent bourgeosie 
and of the state, which was the protector of labour. Great 
landowners and princes who promoted colonization, free 
peasants and coloni wearing themselves out to bring the 
land into cultivation, merchants labouring to develop trade, 
master craftsmen and artisans proud of the geod name and 
the activity of the workshops—all of these helped to make the 
Byzantine Empire the richest state in the world, a state 
whose public revenue reached the sum of 600 million frances, 
an equivalent of six milliards to-day, while the imperial 
treasury was able to heap up a reserve of two to four 
milliards, a state whose prestige dazzled for so long the 
nations of the West. 


56 


CHAPTER V 


ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION IN EAST 
AND WEST. 


THe Eastern Empire before its decline rendered eminent 
services to civilization. It restored a new life to Italy, 
ruined by invasions; the Romagna, the Pentapolis (Ancona 
and Rimini), Istria, Venetia, Sicily, and, above all, Grecia 
Magna became once more, thanks to the empire, oases of 
wealth in a peninsula ravaged by the barbarians. By its 
diplomacy and its military superiority, and still more by 
the activity of its missionaries and the prestige of its culture, 
Byzantium accomplished in the barbarian world of the East 
the same work of civilization which Rome had once per- 
formed in the Western world. She taught them the ad- 
vantages of ordered and fruitful labour when she civilized 
them and led them to Christianity. She Hellenized and 
Slavized the old Roman colonies, the Vlachs of Epirus, 
Southern Albania, Acarnania, Thessaly, and _ Pindus, 
although she never succeeded in weaning them from their 
habit of brigandage and from a pastoral to an agricultural 
life. But if she left the Albanians to return to their wild 
and primitive tribal life, she did at least succeed in elevating 
to a civilized existence the tribes of the great Slav race, of 
which she was the true educator. She spread her civiliza- 
tion among the Slavs of Dacia, who had intermingled with 
Latin coloni, the Roumanians of the future, as well as among 
the Slavs of the Moravian Empire, who were converted to 
the Greek faith in the ninth century by the Byzantine 
Apostles Cyril and Methodius, and among the Slovenes of 
Pannonia and Norica. The influence of the West later dis- 
placed that of Byzantium among Moravians and Slovenes, 
but Byzantine civilization persisted among the Slavized 
Roumanians of Transylvania. 

It was Byzantine culture which triumphed over the bar- 
barism of the Serbs established on the banks of the Danube 
and Save, and in the mountains of Montenegro, Dalmatia, 
Bosnia, and Rascia (Novibazar), on the edge of the Vardar 

57 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


basin, and in the Morava district between the seventh and 
tenth centuries. It was Byzantium which converted them 
to the Orthodox faith, and under her influence the Serbian 
and Croatian tribes, grouped into confederations (plemes) 
and tribes (volosts), under small chiefs (jupans), succeeded 
after becoming the vassals of Basileus, in organizing them- 
selves into states under a Grand Jupan, to whom in the 
tenth century the emperor granted the title of prince, or 
duke, or consul, or king. They formed a court modelled 
upon that of Byzantium, with a nobility of archons or 
counts and barons, and a rich and respected body of 
ecclesiastics. At the same time the family community 
(zadruga) became modified, and grants of individual property 
on the Roman or Byzantine model began to be found side 
by side with the primitive tribal or family estates. The 
more or less homogeneous mass of immigrants split up on 
contact with the ancient cultivators of the soil, the majority 
of whom sank from the position of coloni to that of serfs 
under their new masters. A _ settled existence and the 
neighbourhood of the empire wrought a partial transforma- 
tion in the economic institutions of the South Slavs, some 
of whom followed a pastoral life in the mountains or piracy 
on the coast, while the others became excellent cattle-raisers, 
farmers, and vine-growers. Now that their state had be- 
come more stable and more peaceful, this agricultural | 
population, which was unacquainted with town life, grew so 
quickly that Serbo-Croatia in the tenth century had a popula- 
tion of about two millions. 

Other peoples also owed their introduction to civilized 
life to Byzantium. In Meesia dwelt the Bulgars, rude and 
fierce Turanians, who had come from the Russo-Asiatic 
plains to settle on both shores of the Danube in the course 
of the seventh century (659), and who were converted by 
Byzantium (864-5) and Slavized with extreme rapidity, and 
so completely that they adopted the Serbian language. These 
terrible raiders became like the Slavs, transformed beneath 
the action of the Byzantines. They renounced their turbans, 
their horse-tail standards, and their little war-chiefs, in order 
to adopt the Byzantine dress and institutions. They founded 
a despotic monarchy, and their prince (Khagan) proclaimed 
himself tsar, and at the beginning of the tenth century 

58 


BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION 


founded in the Balkans and beyond the Danube an empire, 
where he posed as the rival of Basileus so successfully that 
the latter was obliged to destroy him after a desperate 
struggle. At Preslav, on the great river, he had a capital, 
wherein he aped clumsily enough the luxury of the Byzan- 
tine court. His aristocracy of boliads and boydrs, a nobility 
of officials, and great landowners as at Byzantium, married 
into Byzantine families, and received a Greek education, 
and his clergy similarly formed an independent church 
following the Greek rite, which came to own a large part 
of the landed property of the country. The Roman coloni 
were for the most part reduced to serfdom. Under this 
pseudo-Greek government agricultural prosperity was very 
great. A tenth century chronicle bears witness that this 
Hellenized Bulgaria ‘‘ abounded in all good things,”’ 
especially in corn, cattle, and salt, and that the population 
had grown immensely (‘‘multitudo magna et populus 
multus’’), although there were no towns. The Bulgars, 
whose rustic airs were mocked by Byzantium, grew rich 
by trading with Hungary and the Greek Empire, whence 
they obtained wines, fruits and gold, embroidered robes, 
pearls, and diadems. In their fortified villages, such as 
Ochrida, the Byzantines more than once found what great 
wealth had been amassed by these semi-barbarians, with 
their veneer of Greek civilization. Indeed the Magyars 
themselves in the tenth century very nearly succumbed to 
the attraction of Byzantium, with which they were in com- 
mercial relations, and it was not until the eleventh century 
that Western influence attached them to Latin civilization. 

Finally, beyond the Danube, in the great Sarmatic plain, 
the pagan Slavs, conquered by the Scandinavians, a Slav 
form of whose name they adopted (Varangians, Rus), deter- 
mined in the course of the tenth century to turn towards 
Byzantium, which they had tried in vain to destroy in their 
expeditions of 907 and 945. The Varangians had founded 
the first Russian states at Novgorod, Smolensk, and Kiev. 
They had grouped the Slav population under their war- 
chiefs, and transformed the old patriarchal nobility into a 
new military aristocracy of boiards, and the comitatus of 
the chief, which was known as the druzhina. But they 
had been incapable of civilizing Russia, where they had 

59 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


merely built up a business of brigandage on a large scale, which 
exploited the indigenous populations by means of tributes 
in kind, and strangers by means of piracy. Byzantium drew 
them little by little towards a civilized existence. She 
enrolled them as mercenaries, and lured them with the bait 
of regular commercial relations by opening her markets to 
them. From the reign of the Emperor Leo VI in the ninth 
century she began to send them missionaries, and they were 
finally converted at the end of the tenth century (989). 
Thenceforward Russia was half civilized, a strange mixture 
of Germanic and Byzantine institutions. The first state in 
which the tribes were merged appeared under Yaroslav the 
Great (1015-1054), who dignified himself with Greek titles. 
His power still maintained a_ half-Scandinavian aspect, 
and his aristocratic entourage of gridit and boydrs some- 
times recalls the comitatus of the German kings, and 
sometimes the Byzantine nobility. A Church was organized 
with the liturgy, traditions, and territorial wealth of the 
Church in the Greek Empire. The patriarchal régime grew 
weaker, and the class of freemen diminished, while the 
moujiks (*‘men of naught’’) became more and more de- 
pendent, after the model of the Byzantine coloni. Society 
became stable; communal property became _ individual 
property; culture advanced, and the Russian state grew 
rich on its active commerce with Byzantium, to which it 
was united by agreements, which abolished the old barbarian 
usages. For two centuries more Byzantine civilization im- 
pregnated the young Christian Russia so deci that it left 
an ineffaceable mark. 

The East Roman Empire thus accomplished, during the 
early Middle Ages, a task of supreme importance. It had 
received undiminished the heritage of Rome and added to 
it. It left a profound mark upon every kind of work. It 
succeeded in colonizing the Christian lands of Eastern 
Europe, and it civilized the barbarians, calling them to the 
fruitful labours of peace. It gave a powerful impulse to 
every form of economic activity, and carried the production 
of wealth to the highest point. If in the social order it only 
half succeeded in protecting free labour and free property 
against the exploitation and usurpations of the aristocratic 
classes, it yet suppressed slavery, and strove with all its 

60 


BYZANTINE CIVILIZATION 


strength to maintain the middle class, both urban and rural. 
Thus it placed itself in the van of civilization, whose great 
traditions it carried on, and it was partly to Byzantium that 
the West in its turn went to school to be prepared for its 
own civilizing mission. 


~ 


61 


CHAPTER VI 


THE WORK OF CHURCH AND STATE IN THE REORGANIZATION OF LABOUR 
AND IN THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RESTORATION OF WESTERN 
CHRISTENDOM DURING THE DARK AGES. 


Durine the centuries which followed the barbarian invasions 
and settlements, the Christian West laboured painfully and 
obscurely at the work of social and economic reconstruction. 
It was a long business, beset by innumerable difficulties, and 
only partially successful, but it prepared the way for the 
great flowering of Western civilization which took place at 
the height of the Middle Ages. 

The attempts at reconstruction were due, in part, to the 
new governments, but mainly to the action of the Church 
and of the various classes of Western society. The idea of 
the state, which had been almost lost at the time of the 
invasions, came to light once again in the countries of the 
West. The Germanic kingdoms, after having unwittingly 
allowed the organization of the Roman Empire to perish, set 
themselves to study the imperial tradition, which was pre- 
served by the Church and by a fraction of the aristocracy, 
in order to establish a stable framework in which, step by 
step, the new society might be reconstituted. The invincible 
tendency of the peoples of the early Middle Ages to 
division and localism was thus corrected by a minimum of 
authority and of unity. The Western states amalgamated as 
best they could Germanic institutions with the Roman 
principles of hierarchy and administration, in order to 
bestow upon their subjects the kind of organization neces- 
sary to reconstitute the forces of production. The effort | 
was incoherent and intermittent, and interrupted by periods 
of anarchy, but it was sufficiently efficacious to bring about 
a partial reorganization of Western Christendom between the 
seventh and the middle of the ninth century. This work, 
which the most intelligent of the barbarian kings sought to 
accomplish, and which has saved their names from oblivion, 
was begun by the Visigoth Euric in Aquitaine, by Gundobad 
in Burgundy in the fifth century, by Clovis, Brunhild, and 

62 


RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WEST 


Dagobert in the sixth and seventh centuries, and, above 
all, by Theodoric the Great and the Ostrogoths in Italy at 
the beginning of the sixth century. The newly converted 
Lombard kings, Authari, Rothari, and Luitprand, took it 
up again with greater success in the seventh and eighth 
centuries, and the Visigothic kings of Spain essayed it after 
their conversion at the end of the sixth century. It was the 
chief claim to glory of the Carolingian dynasty, and, above 
all, of Charlemagne, who spread its effects throughout the 
West. Finally, in England, it won for some of the successors 
of the first Christian kings, such as Egbert, and, above all, 
Alfred the Great (ninth century), a well-deserved renown. 
Alone among the Christian lands of the West, Ireland was 
powerless to advance from the political régime of clans and 
tribal federations to the conception of the state, a weakness 
of organization which contributed to bring about the eclipse 
of her brilliant civilization. Everywhere else hereditary 
monarchies were being organized, with centralizing tendencies 
which attempted to restore that peaceful and ordered state 
of society, in which alone work could be effectively carried 
on. This need for authority led in the year 800 to the re- 
storation of the Western Empire, to the profit of Charle- 
magne and the Carolingians, the leading promoters of the 
idea of the state. It was, in a sense, the consecration of the 
work accomplished during two centuries by the princes of 
the West on behalf of public stability. 

The governments of the West, although obliged to allow 
full scope to aristocratic influences and to survivals of 
Germanic institutions, were yet inspired by Roman and 
Christian principles in the amelioration of their justice, the 
unification and improvement of their legislation, and the re- 
organization of their police, and in their attempt to substi- 
tute for family or private vengeance the repression of crime 
by public authority. Everywhere they tried to favour social 
peace by encouraging the amalgamation of the varied ele- 
ments out of which the peoples of the West were composed. 
Everywhere they sought to revive intellectual culture. The 
barbarian kings, heirs of Rome and servants of the idea 
of the Roman Church, promoted the conquest of pagan lands 
and the colonization and repopulation of the West. They 
stimulated work in their domains with all the forces at their 

63 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


command. They tried to save free landownership, and 
protected the colont and the serfs; some of them, the 
Carolingians and the Anglo-Saxon kings, even sketched out 
a sort of system of poor relief. Their fostering care extended 
to all sides of economic production. They were at pains to 
establish public wealth by bringing men back to the land 
and favouring works of agricultural improvement or the 
conquest of sterile soil. They made their domains model 
estates, such as were the ville of Charlemagne. They con- 
cerned themselves to prevent the wasteful cutting down of 
forests. Similarly, they encouraged industrial production 
and tried, as Charlemagne did, to establish the best work- 
shops on their estates. Above all, they turned their atten- 
tion towards re-establishing commercial activity, for they 
saw in it the surest means of enriching their states. Hence 
the solicitude shown by Theodoric, Rothari, Luitprand, the 


Visigothic and Anglo-Saxon kings, and the Carolingians, 


above all, by Charlemagne, in re-establishing and securing 
the safety of roads, reorganizing means of transport by land 
and sea, restoring markets, fairs and ports, protecting both 
merchants and consumers, re-establishing a sound coinage, 
guaranteeing national commerce against excessive foreign 
competition, and developing both internal and external 
trade. Indeed, there was lacking only the spirit of con- 
tinuity and the power of execution to enable these Western 
governments to bring about a new triumph of the Roman 
tradition in the realm of labour. But they could only sketch 
the outlines of a work, which was destined to be taken up 
again three centuries later. 

The action of the Western Church went deeper, because 
it was more methodical and more continuous. Heir to the 
Roman tradition of authority and embodiment of the ancient 
civilization as transformed by Christianity, the Church 
offered to the West the only model of an ordered and stable 
government, in which authority was combined with liberty, 
the only really living unity, which was founded on a com- 
munity of beliefs and on the principles of Christian society. 
Under the continuous, methodical, and clear-sighted direc- 
tion of the papacy, especially from the time of Gregory the 
Great, enjoying the support of the Merovingian and 
Carolingian state and the co-operation of the mystic army 


64 


Pees ee ee ee See ae — ee ee ee a? ee = 


RECONSTRUCTION OF THE WEST 


of monks and missionaries, Aquitanians, Irish, Anglo- 
Saxons, and Franks, the Church successively converted the 
Arian Visigoths and Burgundians, the Celts of Ireland and 
Wales, the Salian Franks, the Anglo-Saxons, and the pagan 
Germans, all in the space of four hundred years. She thus 
founded the provinces of a new Latin and Christian Empire, 
and gave to Western Europe the form which it kept through- 
out the Middle Ages. Not only did she carry the frontiers 
of a restored civilization as far as the Elbe and the High- 
lands of Scotland, but she also exercised a decisive influence 
upon the social and economic reconstruction of the West. 
Clerks and monks occupied an important place among the 
owners of the soil; they set themselves to attract and to 
keep there a rural population, either by multiplying the 
enfranchisements of slaves, or by stabilizing the condition of 
serfs. The Church laboured on behalf of social peace, in- 
troduced the right of sanctuary, and restricted the right of 
vengeance. She seconded the efforts of the kings to repress 
anarchy, brigandage, and family feuds. She multiplied 
works of charity, hospitals, lazar-houses, and alms-houses. 
She ennobled family life, and elevated the position of women 
by prohibiting the pagan polygamy, opposing moral dis- 
orders, and securing the recognition of the legal right of 
female heiresses in succession questions. She set herself, 
finally, to civilize the barbarian society of the West by re- 
organizing schools and education. 

In the economic sphere the réle of the Church was even 
more efficacious. From the beginning she never ceased to 
proclaim the obligation to work as a divine law. Monastic 
orders inscribed it as a fundamental article of their rule, and 
imposed it on all their members. Moreover, the require- 
ments of existence and the need to exploit the great domains ~ 
which she owned forced the Church to take in hand the 
direction of agricultural colonization, in which she played an 
important part. Mystical ideal and practical reality alike 
led her leaders to undertake the reclamation of waste land 
and the cultivation of the soil, and to take the initiative 
in improved methods of cultivation. For the same reasons 
of general and of class interest, bishops and monks sup- 
ported the renaissance of industrial centres, reorganized pro- 
duction in the monastic workshops, sought to promote and 

65 F 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE © 


revive trade, and even took a direct share in organizing it. 
The example of the Church and that of the rulers of the 
state stimulated the zeal of the lay aristocracy and freemen. 
A general movement carried the West into new paths and ~ 
pushed it towards the re-establishment of all that economic _ 
activity which the barbarian invasions had destroyed. 
Under the direction and sometimes with the direct collabora- _ 
tion of these classes, which formed the élite of Western — 
society, the mass of the people became the humble instru- 
ments of this work of restoration. a 


: 

66 a 
ba 
‘ 


CHAPTER VII 


THE AGRARIAN ECONOMY OF WESTERN CHRISTENDOM.—THE FIRST 
ATTEMPT AT COLONIZATION.—AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND RE- 
POPULATION FROM THE SEVENTH TO THE TENTH CENTURIES. 


Tue work of reconstruction was mainly concerned with the 
land, which had become almost the sole source of capital in 
a society in which natural economy prevailed. The whole 
cycle of production and consumption revolved round the 
land, which furnished the men of this age with almost all 
the elements of life. It was the land which provided the 
material for trade, which was then limited to what could 
take place between an infinite number of small isolated 
groups. Upon its development depended the economic pro- 
gress and the social evolution, which were beginning to 
manifest themselves. Agricultural colonization was the great 
concern of those centuries which followed the invasions and 
settlement of the barbarians. Indeed, if economic events 
be given the place in history which is their due, it should 
rank as one of the capital facts in the history of the last 
four centuries of the Dark Ages, for it had decisive results 
upon the direction taken by medieval social evolution. 

At the end of the seventh century it was necessary to 
take up again the work of civilization which had been per- 
formed by the Romans, and to this work the new states, 
inspired by the spirit of Rome, applied themselves. This 
was the policy of Theodoric the Great in Italy, the Lombard 
kings in the seventh and eighth centuries, the kings of 
Wessex and Alfred the Great, the Carolingians and Charle- 
magne. They sought, in the words which Orosius uses of 
the King of the Ostrogoths, ‘‘ to turn the barbarians to the 
ploughshare,’’ and to lead them ‘* to hate the sword.’’ They 
recalled landowners to their estates, themselves setting an 
example of solicitude for rural cultivation. They tried to 
fix the people to the soil. They encouraged the reclamation 
of waste land by exempting it from taxation and conceding 
rights of property or of usufruct to the reclaimers. They 
settled coloni on empty lands and transported whole popula- 

67 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


tions to reclaim lands which had been devastated, or the 
virgin soil of barbarian countries. Thus it was that Septi- 
mania (Lower Languedoc) was colonized in the ninth century 
by Gothic emigrants from Spain, and Catalonia in the tenth 
by colonists from Gaul. Gallo-Roman and Frankish immi- 
grants began to reclaim the whole of Germany, establish- 
ing themselves between the Rhine and the Elbe, and the 
Alps and the Danube, while colonists of Germanic origin 
came in thousands to colonize Alamannia, Western Neustria, 
Austria, and Styria, and Slav colonies were created in Hesse 
and Thuringia. Military colonization on the frontiers, in the 
marches, aided the development of civil colonization; the 
soldiers lent their assistance to the colonists who were re- 
claiming the land. Both were the order of the day, in par- 
ticular during the Carolingian epoch, and both contributed 
considerably to transform the aspect of the West. 

More effective still was the colonizing activity of the 
Church and, above all, of the monastic orders. Bishops 
frequently became the leaders in agricultural improvements : 
Germain of Paris planted vines, and Eleutherus of Lisieux 
lived in the midst of his labourers. The Church of Rheims 
brought its domain under cultivation in the seventh century 
by means of an appeal for settlers. Western monachism, 
departing from the contemplative ideal of the monks of the 
East, and for the most part refraining from settlement in 
towns, set the cultivation of the soil as an object for the 
activity of hermits scattered throughout the countryside. 
This impulse became decisive when the two great reformers 
of monasticism, the Italian Benedict of Nursia (sixth century) 
and the Irishman Columban (seventh century), grouped their 
monks into powerful associations, concentrated them in vast 
monasteries, and imposed upon them the rule of limited or 
unlimited manual labour, as an obligation imposed by God 
Himself, and as a means of subduing the flesh. In order to 
banish idleness, ‘** the enemy of the soul,’’ Benedict of Nursia 
assigned six or seven hours of manual labour daily to his 
monks, whom Europe thenceforth knew by the name of 
** workers ”’ par excellence (monachi laborantes). Columban 
demanded that his monks should labour until they were 
exhausted; ‘‘ let them go to their repose broken with weari- 
ness, and sleep upon their feet.’’ Moreover, the ascetic ideal 

68 


AGRARIAN COLONIZATION OF THE WEST 


fitted in well with economic necessities. Established in 
forests and wastelands, the monks, in order to live in their 
communities, were forced to break up the soil. Thus the 
Benedictines, in virtue of their rule, wore a pruning-hook 
in their girdles: as a sign of their habitual occupation. 
Columban always moved with an escort of woodcutters. 
The monk Theodulf, near Rheims, ceased not for twenty-two 
years to drive the plough, which after his death was kept as 
an object of veneration at the Church of Saint-Thierry. The 
famous monastic reformer of the ninth century, Benedict of 
Aniane, laboured, dug, and reaped, in the midst of his 
monks. The wide acres of heath and waste and woodland 
which the great and the pious granted to the Church were 
immediately attacked by these holy pioneers, assisted by 
bands of peasants, who knew that beneath the shadow of 
the cloister walls they would find an easier and more certain 
existence. In clearings in the woods, on islands in the fens, 
and round about springs, the monks raised their huts of 
branches, followed by buildings of wood or of stone; they 
drained, cleared, cut down trees, rooted out stumps, made 
meadows and fields, sometimes even vineyards and orchards. 
During 300 years they constituted themselves the persevering 
and methodical promoters of the first agricultural coloniza- 
tion of the West. 

Even allowing for the exaggerations of hagiographical 
narratives, it is undeniable that monasticism played a réle 
of the greatest importance. Inconsiderable in Spain, where 
the Arab invasion prevented it from developing, monastic 
colonization had the happiest results in the other Christian 
states of the West. In Italy, now in the deserted and marshy 
plains, now in the mountains, the Abbeys of Monte Cas- 
sino, Subiaco, Farfa, Saint-Vincent of Volterno, Polirone, 
Novalese, Leno, Pomposa, and, above all, Bobbio, rose like 
so many little centres of culture. Ireland, the isle of saints, 
which organized the last-named of these Italian monasteries, 
Gallo-Roman Aquitaine, and England, which was full of 
ardent neophytes, strove with each other to sow the lands of 
the West with their laborious monastic colonies, and rendered 
a service to civilization which should never be forgotten. 
Ireland, the islands of Scotland, the coasts of Wales, became 
peopled with great monasteries, such as Bangor and Iona. 

69 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms owed the first great enterprises 
of clearance and cultivation to their monasteries at Jarrow, 
Crowland, Ramsay, Evesham, and Glastonbury. In Gaul 
from the sixth century eighty establishments were created 
by monks in the Valleys of the Sdone and Rhone, ninety-four 
between the Pyrenees and the Loire, and fifty-four between 
the Loire and the Vosges. From 228 at the beginning of the 
seventh century the number rose to 1,108 in the 400 years 
which followed up to the end of the tenth century. Every- 
where to these monasteries there cling memories of lands 
cleared and villages founded, the names of which still bear 
witness to their origin. Agricultural centres were organized 
by hundreds and thousands round great abbeys such as 
Monte Maggiore and Aniane, Saint-Guilhem du Désert and 
Moissac, Solignac and Charroux, Saint-Maixent and Anison, 
Saint-Bendéit-sur-Loire and Saint-Mesmin, Saint-Wandrille 
and Jumiéges, Saint-Riquier and Corbie, Luxeuil and Remi- 
remont. Northern Gaul and Burgundy, Alamannia, Fran- 
conia, and Swabia were colonized under the direction of pious 
missionaries—Amandus, Eligius, Columban, Gall, Emmeran. 
The monasteries of Saint-Omer, Saint-Bertin, Saint- 
Pierre de Gand, Elnone, Saint-Trond, Stavelot, Malmédy, 
Priim, Echternach, Saint-Hubert, Murbach, Wissenburg, 
Hagenau, Reichenau, Saint-Gall, Kempten, Ebersberg, 
Friessen, St. Peter of Salzbourg, and many others, were the 
first centres of widespread agricultural colonization in their 
districts. In the old pagan Germany, converted by Winfrith 
(St. Boniface) and his disciples, the monks played a yet 
more active part. It was there, round Fulda, Fritzlar, 
Hameln, Erfurt, Marburg, Corvey, and other monasteries, 
that the work of reclaiming the soil of Germany was really 
organized. Monastic colonization, in conjunction with 
official colonization, both civil and military, carried the 
boundaries of cultivation as far as the Elbe, the Danube, 
and the North Sea. 

The work also received vigorous support from the great 
landowners, who, more especially during the Carolingian era, 
sought in the reclamation of the soil an increase in the value 
and revenue of their domains. More fruitful still was the 
obscure but determined part played in the work by legions 
of small free proprietors and peasant pioneers, whose réle has 

70 . 


AGRARIAN COLONIZATION OF THE WEST 


been too long misunderstood and has only recently been 
brought to light. Under the protection of kings, bishops, 
and great landowners, often even on their own initiative, 
these humble labourers set forth in search of waste and 
uncultivated lands or tracts of forest, which were given over 
to their activity. More often still they profited by the recog- 
nized right of every pioneer to appropriate, by the act of 
putting them under cultivation (aprisio, bifang), lands belong- 
ing to rural communes and other collective owners. They 
made clearings (roden, assarts) with their axes in the forests, 
and brought the heaths under cultivation. They fertilized 
the lands thus won by piling up stumps, tree trunks, thorns, 
and brambles in enormous heaps and setting fire to them. 
With plough and spade they extirpated new shoots and 
roots. They built causeways over the marshes and drained 
them by means of dykes. They undertook, sometimes, as in 
the time of Charlemagne, with the assistance of the state, to 
embank rivers such as the Loire, and thus in Italy, Gaul, and 
Flanders the wild waters were, in part, conquered. A humble 
work, perhaps, but the intensity with which it was carried 
on is witnessed by the multitudes of place names in the West, 
dating from this period, which preserve the memory of these 
clearings, drainages, embankments by which kings, monks, 
large and small landowners, free, half-free, and_ servile 
pioneers sought, for the first time in the Middle Ages, to 
reclaim good fertile land from sterile wilderness. 

The results were, it is true, inferior to the effort, and» 
agricultural production was far from increasing in the same 
proportion as the ardour of colonization. The invasions of 
the ninth and tenth centuries helped to reduce the effects of 
all this effort. But the principal cause of its relative ineffec- 
tiveness must be sought in the predominance of the system 
of natural economy itself, which was then an insufficient 
stimulus to activity, content with rudimentary methods of 
cultivation, and incapable of promoting a greater produc- 
tivity, by reason of the narrowness of the markets of con- 
sumption. 

The traditions of a primitive agrarian economy still 
remained powerful in Western society ; men still expected to 
gather the natural products of the earth without labour, to 
exploit the woods and the forests, to follow the unchanging 

71 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


methods of pastoral economy. A large part of the soil of 
Kurope, in Ireland, the east of England, the Low Countries 
and Low Germany, and along the coasts of Picardy, 
Lower Poitou and Lombardy, was covered with marsh. 
The plains were full of bogs, and there were still 
immense tracts of moorland, deserts overgrown with brush- 
wood, furze, and heath, commons, velds, boschen, houten, 
loos, hermes, gastinnes, ronceraies, épinaies, as they were 
called in different countries. This wasteland covered a large 
part of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, a third of England 
(together with the fens), vast tracts of the Low Countries, 
North and South Germany, part of Switzerland, the central 
plateau of France, Armorica, Southern Aquitaine, and 
Central Italy. Charters constantly contain references to 
these uncultivated lands, which made up a considerable part 
of the great domains. 

All the Christian peoples of the West obtained an im- 


portant means of livelihood from river and coast fisheries. — 


They knew the use of weirs and dams for catching fish, and 
in the Carolingian period monastic and seigniorial landowners 
made fishponds and stews on their estates; kings and great 
lords were able to sell the fish from their ville. The coastal 
populations of the English Channel, the North Sea, and the 
Atlantic, fished for herring, salmon, lobster, and eel-pout, 
and even risked themselves in hunting seals, porpoises, and 
whales. The fishermen of the Mediterranean continued to 
catch the tunny fish and other species peculiar to that sea. 
Everywhere fish was an important element in the food supply. 

In spite of clearings, forests spread their cloak over a 
great part of the soil of the West. Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, 
and the Scottish Highlands, which are to-day bare, were then 
covered with vast oak and beech and fir and pine woods, 
the trunks of which are still to be found in bogs. Celtic 
poetry is full of the enchantment of this old primitive forest. 
Almost all Armorica was a huge wood, the memory of which 
is immortalized in the venerable thickets of Broceliande. A 
third of England was covered, with great forests, stretching 
as far as Sussex and Dorset and even into the lower valley 
of the Thames, which they completely encircled. Out of 
their brakes came bands of wolves, which, as late as the 
ninth century, attacked the villages. The plains of Flanders 

72 


AGRARIAN COLONIZATION OF THE WEST 


and the Netherlands, now so bare, were, before the eleventh 
century, for a great part forest regions—houtlands—which 
stretched until they joined the immense forests of the 
Ardennes and of Eifel, the famous Charcoal-burners’ Forest 
(forét Charbonniére) of legend. The Vosges, Haardt, and 
Central Germany were also forest-lands, in which coloniza- 
tion had levelled only small clearings, and the great Her- 
cynian Forest rolled even beyond the borders of Bohemia, 
hardly reduced at all by assarts. In Gaul everything con- 
duces to the belief that two-thirds of the soil was still covered 
with forest in the time of Charlemagne, and even in the 
cultivated districts the proportion seems to have varied from 
a third to a half. From the Argonne to the Alps and the 
Pyrenees, from the ocean to the Juras, all was forest, inter- 
spersed with open plains which had been brought under 
cultivation. Forest had recovered its sway in Northern and 
Eastern Spain and in a large part of Northern, Central, and 
Southern Italy. Already protective laws defended it against 
fire and devastation by those who used it. Charlemagne had 
tried to introduce rational principles of forestry, by regulat- 
ing the felling of trees and giving instructions for pruning. 
Indeed, the forest played a réle of the first importance in 
the economy of these times. It gave men building timber 
and firewood, pitch and resin, most of the elements necessary 
for lighting, and the fruit of its wild trees. Under its shade 
great herds of pigs rooted for acorns. The chase, which was 
at first the right of all freemen, but which the nobles usually 
succeeded in reserving for themselves, provided large and 
small game in abundance. There were quantities of bears, 
boars, deer and stags, and animals which have disappeared 
to-day, such as bison, aurochs, and beavers were still to be 
met with under the cover of the woods. Part of the food 
supply of the great domains was drawn in those days from 
venison. 

Cattle-raising was another great resource, and the 
majority of the Celts, Anglo-Saxons, and Germans remained, 
even after their adoption of civilized life, first and foremost, 
herdsmen. The typical Englishman of the ninth century 
was a herdsman rather than a sailor, for in one district on 
the Devonshire coast we find 1,168 swineherds as against 
seventeen fishermen. In Ireland cattle were more valuable 

78 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


than land, and wealth depended on the number of cows 
which a man possessed. In Central Germany cattle were still 
a means of exchange in the seventh century. Save in the 
maritime and Alpine districts, in which grasslands flourished, 
well-irrigated meadows (prata) were rare, and pastures 
(pascua) predominated, together with the common lands. 
Thus large cattle and horses were most abundant in regions 
favoured by Nature or in the reserved demesne land of great 
estates. War-horses, stallions, and bulls were eagerly raised. 
The horse, rarer than the ass, was very expensive, and was 
worth a third or a half of the price of a slave in Gaul. 
Smaller live-stock, which demand less capital and are better 
suited to primitive agriculture, abounded. Pigs were raised 
for food, sheep for wool, goats for their meat and skins, 
poultry for the food of the lord’s household, bees for their 
honey, which then took the place of sugar, and for the wax 
out of which candles were made—the most luxurious method 
of lighting. One great community, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 
possessed 7,720 pigs; another, Bobbio, 5,000. An imperial 
vila in the ninth century contained 200 lambs, 120 sheep, 
150 ewes, 160 piglings and 5 boars, 17 beehives, 30 geese, 
80 chickens, and 22 peacocks. Another had a herd of 100 
goats. In England the proportion of large as compared: with 
small live-stock was 8 per cent., rising only occasionally as 
high as 50 per cent. In Spain certain improvements in 
irrigation had been introduced. The monks and the royal 
bailiffs had developed meadows, increased stock, and even 
introduced improvements in the choice of farmyard animals 
and large and small stock; but these were exceptions. For 
lack of capital, fat pasture, easy transport, and wide markets, 
the West did not as yet possess the more progressive forms of 
exploitation of the soil. 

Marl was, nevertheless, known as a method of enriching 
the soil as early as the time of Charlemagne, but farm manure 
was, like large cattle, scarce. In general a threefold rotation 
of crops was practised, which reserved only one year in three 
for fallow, instead of one in two. It was a mark of real 
progress, but insufficient seriously to threaten the pre- 
dominance of extensive cultivation, which continued to 
exhaust the soil rapidly, and give only small returns. In 
the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Germanic lands cultivation was 

74, 


AGRARIAN COLONIZATION OF THE WEST 


often carried out in common, by means of heavy collective 
plough-teams. But agricultural tools were, in general, 
confined to the hoe, the harrow, and the primitive wooden 
plough. Rural transport was often performed on the backs 
of men, asses, and horses, when the two-wheeled cart could 
not be used. In the Germanic and Celtic West there still 
persisted the system of compulsory common cultivation, 
according to a fixed rotation. The Roman methods of 
scientific agriculture were unknown, save on a few great 
domains and on monastic estates. Nevertheless, the cultiva- 
tion of cereals gained ground in the Celtic and Germanic 
lands. The West cultivated in particular rye, which fur- 
nished the poor man’s bread, spelt, and corn, the latter being 
less widespread than the other two; also oats and barley, for 
the beasts and the brewhouse. Sudden variations in harvest, 
combined with inadequate sowings and difficulties of trans- 
port, often led to dearths. Moreover, save in the old centres 
of cultivation, cultivated fields, as well as orchards, gardens, 
and vineyards, occupied a very inferior place compared with 
pastures, forests, and heaths. 

Nevertheless, during the last four centuries of the Middle 
Ages there was begun a marked extension of horticulture 
and floriculture, arboriculture and vine-growing, principally 
under the influence of the monasteries and the stewards of 
the great princely domains. In the Celtic regions apple and 
pear-trees were cultivated. In the Germanic countries of 
the south gardens and orchards were introduced, and from 
them were obtained, as in the old Roman times, peas, beans, 
a few common flowers, a few medicinal plants, and the 
ordinary fruit-trees. In the Mediterranean lands, Spain and 
Italy, a great deal of fruit was still gathered, and the produce 
of the olive-groves was exported far beyond local markets. 
The vine, propagated by kings, great men, and monks, re- 
covered part of the empire which it had lost; it ventured 
even into Ireland, and it was planted from the eighth century 
on the banks of the Moselle, the Rhine, and the Danube; the 
wines of Spier, Worms, and Mainz had a wide clientéle 
throughout these regions in the ninth century. In France 
the requirements of local consumption led to plantations as 
far afield as Neustria; Burgundy was already celebrated in 
the seventh century for its wines from the Cote d’Or, and 

75 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Saintonge, the Bordeaux and Narbonne districts, Spain, and 
Italy recovered their old fame. The cultivation of certain 
industrial plants became general, in order to meet the needs 
of each domain. Flax was the most widely cultivated of all 
in the West; the dye plants, madder and, above all, woad, 
were widespread in those great domains where workshops 
existed. Aquitaine and Northern Spain furnished them in 
abundance, but the crop was far from being specialized. In 
the West at this period agricultural production, although it 
had been stimulated by colonization, was always kept on a 
small scale to fit the dimensions of the small local societies, 
by which it was almost exclusively carried on. But already, 
before the invasions of the Northmen, the rise of agricultural 
produce shows that it was making slow progress. Witnesses 
worthy of belief speak of the agricultural prosperity of 
Ireland as late as the ninth century, of the Rhineland, Gaul, 
and Italy during the Carolingian period, and of Spain itself 
during part of the Visigothic domination. 


Another proof of this relative and short-lived renaissance 


is to be found in the partial reconstitution of the populations 
of the Christian West between the seventh and tenth 
centuries. Little by little the races had become fused; Celts 
and Anglo-Saxons, Germans, Gallo-Romans, Visigoths and 
Ibero-Latins, Lombards and Italians, had intermingled. 
The Germanic element had, indeed, easily been absorbed 
in most of the West, notably in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. 
Streams of emigration and transferences of peoples had 
transformed certain regions, such as Armorica and the 
Rhenish and Saxon districts. In spite of various scourges 
which still raged at rather less frequent intervals, in spite of 
epidemics and dearths, in spite of a low birth-rate and a 
mediocre marriage-rate, the population of Western Europe 
was, little by little, built up again. In Ireland it was suffi- 
ciently numerous to assist by emigration in populating Scot- 
land and Western Brittany. If in England the population 
was still, in the eleventh century (not counting the four 
northern counties), only 1,500,000 souls, in Germany the 
country had become so populous that the number of villages 
between the Rhine and the Meuse trebled itself in the tenth 
century. The population of Gaul in the time of Charlemagne 
has been estimated at between eight and nine million souls. 
76 


PIs 


AGRARIAN COLONIZATION OF THE WEST 


In Lombard Italy in the eighth century, peace, in the words 
of Paul Deacon, ‘‘ made the people multiply like ears of 
corn.’’ It was this which made possible this first agricultural 
colonization of the West, which is, in a sense, the forerunner 
of the magnificent movement of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries. 


77 


CHAPTER VIII 


EVOLUTION OF THE REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST FROM THE 
SEVENTH TO THE TENTH CENTURY.—THE DECLINE OF THE OLD 
FORMS OF LAND OWNERSHIP.—THE PROGRESS OF THE GREAT ~ 
DOMAINS.—THE ATTACK ON SMALL PROPERTIES AND THE CLASS 
OF FREEMEN. 


COLONIZATION and the relative progress of agricultural pro- 
duction turned primarily to the advantages of the upper 
ranks of Western society. On the other hand, the free 
communities, which owned the soil in common in certain 
parts of Christendom, were little by little eliminated either 
wholly or partially from this ancient possession. 

From the seventh to the tenth centuries the collective 
property of tribes and village communities, even more than 
that of family communities, was subjected to a series of 
severe shocks. Tribal property, the primitive form of 
agrarian collectivism, survived only in the Celtic countries, 
Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. The soil of Ireland still be- 
longed in the seventh century to 184 tribes or clans, each 
of which possessed enough territory to pasture 3,000 to 9,000 
cows, and which were subdivided into 552 districts called 
carrows of about 525 to 1,050 acres each, each carrow being 
in turn subdivided into four quarters, and each quarter con- 
taining four family estates. As in Scotland and Wales the 
clan held the land in common, and was one in peace as in 
war. It had its petty kings, its chiefs and nobles and 
clients, but no man possessed any individual property save 
his household goods, and each held only a right of usufruct 
over his strip of the tribal domain. Heaths, forests, and 
pasturelands were kept for common use, and ploughlands 
were redivided periodically for a term among the family 
groups. There even persisted traces of the ancient co-owner- 
ship of cattle to the profit of the clan, although by the 
seventh century herds had become private property. In 
each district of Ireland the free population lived com- 
munistically in immense wooden buildings, protected by 

earthworks and divided into three galleries. The people 
78 


REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 


lived and fed there in common, seated upon benches, and 
all the free families of the district slept there upon beds of 
reeds. But even in these regions, where isolation had caused 
the perpetuation of primitive forms of civilization, tribal 
property was soon shaken by the formation of great domains 
by the tribal chieftains (pencenedl), and nobles (uchelwrs or 
machtiern), as well as by the building up of the wide lands 
of the Celtic Church and the organization of family property. 
Everywhere else in the Christianized Germanic West, the 
decline of the collective property of the tribe was infinitely 
more rapid. In England, as Vinogradoff has shown, there is 
no trace of property owned collectively by the Anglo-Saxon 
tribes, now formed into states, or of the collective property 
of the shire or district. At most there are a few vestiges 
of common lands in the little division of the hundred, and a 
few survivals of a tribal régime in regions influenced by the 
Celts. But everywhere the old Germanic institution of the 
common property of the township survived. Forests, 
pasturelands, heaths, and bogs remained undivided among 
the members of the village community, who possessed equal 
rights of property and usage over them. Meadows and 
ploughlands were divided into lots, the former enclosed for 
part of the year, the latter lying in open fields. Each free 
member of the village community had the right to a certain 
number of long strips or ‘‘furlongs’’ of about an acre, 
separated from the others by bands of turf known as balks, 
so that each family enjoyed an equal share in the cultivated 
lands and those under fallow. After the corn had been 
harvested and the hay cut, these fields were thrown open to 
the cattle of all the family groups, as the common pastures 
were all the year round. The land was cultivated by the 
same methods and in common by the members of the rural 
community, who yoked teams of eight or twelve oxen to 
plough the soil. The collective property of the Anglo-Saxon 
village grew rapidly less in proportion as there were organized 
royal and seigniorial manors, which claimed forests and 
‘common lands for themselves, and left the village com- 
munity with nothing but its old methods of co-operative 
cultivation and its periodical distributions of the fields. 
Germany, breaking away more completely still from the 
régime of agrarian collectivism, knew tribal property no 
79 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


more, and was little by little giving up the system of collec- 
tive village property called the mark. Diminished, on the 
one hand, by legal appropriations resulting on the breaking 
up of waste lands, and, on the other, by voluntary alienations 
agreed to by the village communities, and by the usurpa- 
tions of princes and great landowners, the mark broke up 
in all the Germanic lands from the Elbe to the Rhine and 
the Scheldt. It maintained itself henceforth only in the 
form of numerous commons (allmends), over which, more- 
over, the village community often preserved only rights of 
usage. In the regions of Gaul, Spain, and Italy, where the 
mark system had succeeded in establishing itself, it was un- 
able to survive, and left no trace save in the commons, in 
certain rights of usage such as common of shack over the 
open fields, and sometimes in the system of co-operative 
ploughing. The Roman peasants continued to be acquainted 
only with the public property of the state, which passed to 
the kings, and the communal property of the townships of 
freemen, the vici, which became less and less important as 
time went on. 

Without suffering the same profound decay, family 


property in its primitive forms was obliged to undergo a 


modification under the action of the individualistic concep- 
tions of Roman Law, and the influence of economic 
necessities, working in favour of individual private property. 
But at the same time family ownership regained at the 
expense of the collective ownership of tribe and village a part 
of the ground which it lost to individual ownership, so that 
its power was less severely shaken. Family property, at first 
limited to the possession of household goods, cattle, garden 
and house, and to a temporary usufruct in the arable hold- 
ings (Celtic tate, Anglo-Saxon hide, and Germanic hufe) of 
about 40 to 120 acres redivided at more or less regular 
intervals, was in the end extended to these holdings, which 
began to be held in permanent occupation. Family property 
was also increased by lands recovered from the waste by the 


family community, which thereupon became private property. 


At the same time, however, the old family property (the 

Anglo-Saxon ethel, the terra aviatica, salica), indivisible, in- 

alienable, belonging to the whole group of relatives, reserved 

for male members only to the exclusion of women, cultivated 
80 


oe 


REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 


and enjoyed in common, this ancient property which still 
existed in the Celtic and Germanic countries in the sixth 
century, suffered a series of shocks under the influence 
of the individualistic tendencies of Roman civilization. 
Between the seventh and ninth centuries, in these regions, 
the father received the right to name an heir, to divide up 
the land, and to make grants thereof. Wills became general. 
Women and girls were admitted to a share in the inheritance 
even of land. Alienations of the family domain were allowed 
within certain limits. 

Thus the principle of private and individual property was 
built up and spread among the new races. Rising out of 
partition or succession, it was increased by the fruit of 
personal labour, of what were known as “ aquisitions,’’ and 
especially of assarts, or land recovered from the waste by 
the labour of pioneers. It received barbarian names, book- 
land in England, alod in Germany and Gaul, but it was 
fundamentally the same as the old Roman property, the 
possessio or sors, over which the individual has full rights, 
which was now triumphing over the primitive conception 
long surviving among the Celts and Germans. 

This movement, which tended to transfer the ownership 
of the soil, almost the sole source of wealth, from collective 
groups, whether tribe, hundred, village, or family, to in- 
dividuals, worked chiefly in favour of the classes which were 
then in possession of political and social power. It was not 
the small but the large property which benefited by the dis- 
appearance of communal ownership. The possession of the 
soil became the appanage of those who, in the division of 
social labour, had seized upon the functions of government 
and upon material and spiritual power. First of all the new 
rulers of states, kings and kinglets of diverse origin, built 
up great domains for themselves. In the Celtic countries 
they accumulated them in the shape of disinherited lands, 
the third share in all booty, and tribal lands. Elsewhere in 
the Germanic countries they acquired a large part of the 
soil by conquest, by judicial sentences, by the partial appro- 
priation of the lands of village communities and marks, by 
seizure of the public lands of the Roman Treasury. Much 
the same thing happened on the territories of the old Roman 
Empire. Often the new powers thus got into their posses- 

81 G 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


sion a third of the land, and in Lombard Italy, for a short 
time, they appropriated as much as a half. Everywhere, it 
is true, they squandered this treasure, but magnificent 
vestiges still remained in the ninth century. In the Italian 
peninsula a ninth part of the soil then formed part of the 
royal domain, and the Carolingian princes owned at this 
period 100 domains in Lombardy, 205 in Piedmont, and 
320 in Alamannia, Bavaria, Thuringia, and Ostmark. 
Hundreds of thousands of square miles were in royal hands 
in the West. They were mainly composed of forests and 
waste lands, but there was also a good deal of cultivated 
land among them. 

Side by side with this great princely property, the great 
Church property likewise extended from century to century, 
slowly built up, a piece here and a piece there, out of the 
munificence of kings and of the upper classes, even of humbler 
folk, and by dint also of reclamation and agricultural 
colonization. There are plain indications that about a third 
of the soil of Western Christendom belonged to the Church 
in the ninth century, although it suffered from the policy of 
secularization pursued by the first Carolingians, and from 
the frequent usurpations of powerful laymen. In England 
men saw kings endow forty abbeys at a stroke, and bestow 
upon them the tenth of their royal domains. In Christian 
Germany abbeys and bishoprics were overwhelmed with 
gifts. Prim had 2,000 ‘‘ manses,’’ 119 villages, and two 
great forests; Fulda, 15,000 carucates of land; Tegernsee, 
12,000; St. Gall, 160,000 arpents. To the Abbey of Lorsch 
belonged 2,000 ‘*‘ manses ’’ and two large forests; to Gander- 
sheim, 11,000 carucates of land. Hersfeld had 1,702 domains. 
Many monasteries had no less than 1,000 to 2,000 carucates 
of property, and the bishoprics of Augsberg, Salzburg, and 
Freisingen owned from 1,000 to 1,600 ‘‘ manses.’? In the 
words of a Merovingian king: ‘°‘ All wealth has been handed 
over to the churches.’’ There have come down 72 grants 
by Charlemagne in favour of the churches of Germany ; Louis 
the Pious made 600 grants to them, and the two first Ottos, 
1,541. The churches and monasteries in the old imperial 
lands were no less favoured. One Bishop of Langres owned 
a whole county. The Abbey of Saint-Remi of Rheims held 
693 domains, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés had 1,727, cover- 

82 


REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 


ing an area of 150,000 hectares. Saint-Wandrille, near 
Rouen, had 1,727 ‘‘ manses ”’ and 10,000 subjects at the end 
of the seventh century, and 4,824 domains in the ninth. 
Luxeuil numbered 15,000. The Abbey of Saint-Martin of 
Tours ruled over 20,000 serfs. In Italy 2,000 ‘‘ manses ”’ 
were in the hands of the Bishopric of Bologna and the 
patrimony of the Papacy was a sort of vast state, the posses- 
sions of which were sown all over a part of the West. 

The territorial power of the lay aristocracy was due to a 
combination of usurpation committed at the expense of 
communal property, violence employed against small pro- 
prietors, pressure exercised on the rulers of the states, and 
colonization. Already growing under the Roman Empire, 
it overran all bounds during the Dark Ages. It triumphed 
everywhere in the West from the Celtic lands, in which the 
uchelwers and machtiern created vast domains for them- 
selves out of tribal and family lands, to the Roman 
countries, where the old and new nobility amalgamated and 
grew rich by despoiling short-sighted kings and the en- 
feebled ranks of the small proprietors. In England the 
nobles, earls, thanes, and ealdormen built up opulent 
manors with such success that in the eleventh century a 
few great families had succeeded in gaining possession of 
two-thirds of the soil of England. In Germany a Duke of 
Bavaria, in the eighth century, possessed 276 ‘‘ manses’”’ in 
one district and 100 in another. In the same country the 
head of the great Welf family, in the tenth century, owned 
4,000. It has been calculated that instead of 900 hectares, 
which was the average extent of a great Roman estate in 
Gaul, the great Merovingian estate was as large as 1,800 to 
2,600. Moreover, the same person usually possessed several 
such estates. In the Carolingian period the lands of the 
aristocracy were often scattered in different regions. Nobles 
of the first or second rank, Gallo-Roman, Visigothic, and 
Lombard, thus succeeded in completing to their own 
advantage the process of concentration of landed property, 
which had been begun in the preceding period. 

The possession of land assured to the bodies, families, and 
individuals who managed thus to monopolize it so great a 
power that it led to the formation of a new nobility, distinct 
both from that of Germanic and that of Roman society, but 

88 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


built up of elements borrowed from both and combined with > 
more recent institutions. 
Almost everywhere in the West, from the Celtic to the © 
Germanic and Roman lands, the nobility of race or birth 
grew less, but a landed aristocracy grew greater under a 
variety of names, and began to coalesce with the aristocracy 
of service, formed of persons, sometimes of quite humble 
rank, who were attached to the king’s service and with the 
aristocracy of high officials, to whom was delegated the exer- 
cise of public authority, and who gradually transformed their 
revocable function into a hereditary office. Thus the Irish, 
Welsh, and Armorican uchelwrs, pencenedls, cinnidls, 
machtiern, batres (cow-owners), the Anglo-Saxon thanes, 
earls, and ealdormen, the Frankish and Gallo-Roman 
edelings, antrustions, nobiles, proceres, optimates, dukes 
and counts, the Visigothic and Romano-Spanish nobiliores, 
gardings, judices, dukes and counts, the Lombard and 
Italian gasindes, gastaldes, dukes and counts—all these went 
to form a single class of lords or great men (seniores, 
optimates, proceres, potentes), which replaced that of the 
Roman senators and the ancient Germanic and Celtic 
nobility. Below them and in their service were grouped 
their agents, familiars, and men-at-arms (familia, maisnie, 
comitatus, truste), whom their patronage ennobled to such 
a point, indeed, that in Germany, the Low Countries, and 
Italy, and even for a short time in Gaul, simple serving 
men, the ministeriales, often of servile condition, were 
promoted to the rank of nobles. Sometimes freely, some- 
times by force, sometimes in spite of the kings, and some- 
times with their concurrence, the aristocracy, assuming to 
itself the protective rédle which, in civilized society, the 
state claims to exercise over individuals, subordinated land- 
owners of small or medium estate by granting them their 
patronage, by spreading the custom of commendation 
among them and by enrolling them as vassals. Thus was 
created a whole hierarchy of domains and of free dependants, 
under the protection of the great landowners, on condition 
of a mutual exchange of services and the concession to the 
vassals of estates known as beneficia or precaria, which, 
although granted at first on revocable or temporary titles, 
very soon became hereditary. Finally, a new stage was — 
84 


REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 


reached in a part of the West when the state despoiled 
itself of the attributes of public power (administration, 
police, justice, the right to levy taxes and raise troops) by 
the concession of immunities, and the great landowner be- 
came not only a high official, but also a sort of sovereign in 
his own domain. Then it was that on the top of the 
selgniorial régime, which placed men in economic and social 
dependence upon the landed aristocracy, there was super- 
imposed the feudal régime, which, in the ninth, and 
especialiy in the tenth, century, finally conferred political 
sovereignty upon the aristocratic class, at least in France 
and Northern Spain, if not in Germany, Italy, and England. 

Already masters of the greater part of the land, the landed 
aristocracy thus became, in the course of 400 years, masters 
of the men who dwelt thereon. The great domain was 
indeed the solid basis upon which their power was founded. 
Preserving its fundamental integrity, despite the partitions 
which detached fragments from it, and bearing in its very 
name the memory of its chief owner, the villa, or massa, 
or curtis, or saltus, or sala, or fundus, or manor, as it was 
called, was a little kingdom, almost a little world, governed 
by a master, the lord, who was invested with absolute 
authority, and had in his possession all the elements neces- 
sary to economic existence. In it an organization, founded 
on a hierarchy of functions and divisions of labour, secured 
the satisfaction of all the needs of masters and subjects 
alike. At its centre rose the seigniorial dwelling-place 
(palatium, fronhof, salhof, castellum, hall), half castle and 
half farmhouse, often surrounded by a wall or palisade, 
rough enough in the Celtic and Germanic countries, but 
already more elegant and comfortable in the Romance lands. 
Everything was arranged for the sojourn of the master and 
his household. Farm buildings, stables, storehouses, cellars, 
barns, workshops, were all grouped round the hall. Every- 
thing was there, even a chapel for the life of the spirit, which 
was no more forgotten than the life of the body. 

Economic organization reached the highest pitch of per- 
fection on the great monastic domains, and then on the great 
imperial or royal domains. In the former, wherein a sort of 
communistic ideal prevailed, where the rule restrained 
individualism, and where all the monks were equals in the 

85 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


distribution of labour and of its produce, there reigned an 
inflexible discipline, which assigned to each his task and his 
reward, according to the principles of a sort of co-operative 
society for both production and consumption. The adminis- 
tration of each of the economic services was presided over 
by a cellarer, or else by a provost or dean. Each monk had 
his function, just as each subject of the monastery had his; 
gardeners, labourers, fishermen, foresters, swineherds, ox- 
herds, or shepherds worked under the order of the foremen — 
of each occupation. A strict economy ruled in the distribu- 
tion and preservation of produce. Everything—harvests, 
instruments of tillage, and iron tools, even old habits and 
old shoes—was looked after with the greatest care. In the 
great royal domains, such as those of Aquitaine, to which 
Charlemagne’s famous capitulary De Villis applied, the same 
organization was applied with less rigidity. Agents (judices, 
majores) or stewards there governed one domain or several, 
having under their orders special agents at the head of each 
service, and the whole population of subjects. The Lombard 
household, with its gastald, its massarius, its domesticus, 
and the Germanic hof with its meter or vogt present the same 
spectacle. Everywhere in the West identity of needs gave 
rise to similar organs in the great domain. 

The lands of the great domain were divided into a 
collection of holdings worked by tenants, to whom their 
cultivation was confided (terra indominicata), and a section 
reserved by the lord to be farmed directly by himself. The 
latter was called the lord’s demesne (dominicum, terra 
dominicata). It comprised not only the central nucleus of 
lands, on which stood the lord’s dwelling-place, but also 
other lands scattered about over more or less distant parts 
of the estate. It was cultivated by the labour of serfs 
grouped round the central hall, or else by that of coloni and 
serfs, who were provided with separate holdings. The Abbey 
of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, for example, which reserved 6,471 
hectares as its own demesne, and divided up 17,112 hectares 
among its coloni and serfs, farmed the former by means of 
three days of labour exacted weekly from the tenants settled 
on the latter. The demesne usually comprised arable lands, 
meadows, and forests. That of Verriéres contained 300 
hectares of ploughland, 95 arpents of vines, and 60 of 

86 


REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 


meadows, besides a large wood, and the demesne of Vitry- 
en-Auxerrois was on the same scale. It was in this way that 
the great landowner secured the very considerable quantity 
of the necessities of life which he needed. At Bobbio the 
demesne of the abbey provided the monks in the ninth 
century with 2,100 hogsheads of corn, 2,800 pounds of oil, 
1,600 cartloads of hay, and a quantity of cheese, salt, chest- 
nuts, and fish. It maintained a large number of cattle, 
especially swine. All the food products—cereals, meat, oil, 
milk, wine—all the raw materials necessary to life—wool, 
flax, wood—and the greater part of the necessary manu- 
factures came from the demesne, and from the rents imposed. 
upon the tenants of land allotted by the lord. The latter 
and his household got food and clothing and everything 
which they needed from the demesne. Charlemagne him- 
self lived with his folk in this fashion. 

Finally, it was the great domain which was the centre of 
the social life of the upper classes. Great men dwelt there, 
sometimes in wooden habitations, rough and devoid of art, 
as in England and Ireland, sometimes, as in the Roman lands, 
in stone houses, where the old traditions of luxury lived 
again, more or less remodelled by Germanic barbarism. 
These great men there led a life of violent physical exercise, 
of hunting, and of great meals, mingled with more or less 
refined amusements, the characteristic life of all aristocracies 
at half-civilized epochs. Only an élite rose during the 
Carolingian period to the conception of intellectual pleasures. 
For the other members of the aristocratic classes, the sensual 
life of pure materialism, in its different aspects, remained the 
sole ideal to which they were capable of rising. 

This violent, fierce, and ambitious rural aristocracy, which 
disciplined labour and reduced it to serfdom in the great 
domain, pursued with tenacity the destruction of the small 
free properties, which hindered its expansion, just as the 
independence of the small owners gave umbrage to its 
authority. Small free proprietors remained for a long time 
sufficiently numerous in the West to represent a social power, 
with which kings and great men had to count. Gallic 
cymrys and Irish fines, Armorican boni viri, Anglo-Saxon 
ceorls, Germanic frilingen, Burgundian minofledes, Gallo- 
Roman ingenui (free owners), Visigothic allodiales, Lombard 

87 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ahrimanns, Italian primi homines, bozadores, they all had 
many traits in common. First of all there was the moderate 
size of their domains, no more than 120 acres (the hide or 
hufe) in England and Germany, and often less in the Gallo- 
Roman manor. But the small owner was absolute master 
therein, as absolute as the great man in his villa or his curtis. 
He had the right to enjoy all the possessions of the Germanic 
village community or the commons of the Roman town- 
ships. His property and his person were inviolable, and 
under the special protection of custom and law. He had 
the right to bear arms; he sat on the judgment seat with 
his peers ; he was summoned to assemblies. He administered 
the affairs of his village or township, forming with his neigh- 
bours the common council, which is even found in Roman 
lands. But he was a butt for the galling jealousy of the 
great landowner, because his lands were intermingled with 
those of the latter and prevented him from rounding off his 
estate. In a single canton of the district of Salzburg, in the 
eighth century, 237 small estates were thus entangled among 
21 ecclesiastical domains, 17 lands of vassals, and 12 great 
ducal properties. When all things else bent before the great 
territorial lord, the freeman with his independent nature, 
living proudly with his family in his little village, on his 
isolated holding, or in his Roman township, dared to raise 
his head and look his powerful neighbour in the face. 
Therefore, a duel to the death was waged throughout the 
West between the small proprietor and the great. Decimated 
by the wars in which it was obliged to take part, sub- 
mitted to absorbing and onerous public charges, ill-defended 
by the royal power, which ought in self-interest to have 
leant upon it, and which only intermittently recognized that 
this was so, this middle class defended itself vigorously. 
Already in decay in Italy and Gaul, in the fifth and sixth 
centuries, it succeeded in building itself up again in the 
eighth, and became numerous and influential in the 
Carolingian Empire. The abdication of the central power 
during the following period; the weakness of Charlemagne’s 
successors, which obliged freemen to commend themselves 
to the great lords by the Edict of Mersen (847), together — 
with the shock of the last invasions, brought an almost com- 
plete victory to the landed capitalism of the time, repre- 
88 


REGIME OF PROPERTY IN THE WEST 


sented by the great proprietors. It was not obtained 
without a struggle. We read of freemen grouping them- 
selves together in associations or unions for mutual defence 
(gilds), organizing revolts at various points, rising in 
insurrection against the landed aristocracy, and outlawed by 
princes, who imagined themselves to be defending the social 
order. The small free properties, usurped by the aristocracy 
or alienated in its favour, were at last absorbed in the great 
domains, or else transformed either into benefices or into 
precaria and placed in dependence upon them. Neverthe- 
less, little islands of free landowners managed to maintain 
themselves everywhere where physical nature and the power 
of tradition stayed the movement for the concentration of 
land, which was going on in favour of the aristocratic classes. 
In Lower Saxony, Frisia, the German Marches, maritime 
Flanders, in the regions of the Alps and Pyrenees, in 
Aquitaine and Southern Gaul, in the northern and eastern 
counties of England, in the high March of Spain, and in a 
few parts of Italy the population of small owners remained 
free and proud, a powerless minority in the midst of 
thousands of men who remained in subjection, or had been 
cast back into it. 


89 


CHAPTER IX 


THE DEPENDENT RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST.—THEIR ECONOMIC AND 
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL CONDITION (SEVENTH TO TENTH 
CENTURY). 


THE mass of the population of Western Christendom lived 
(from the seventh to the tenth century) by the cultivation 
of land, which they did not own, but to which they were 
bound by more or less close ties. In the highest rank of this 
class of non-landowning cultivators in dependence on the 
aristocracy were to be found men who retained their personal 
liberty and could dispose of a more or less considerable part 
of the produce of their labour. Here and there, notably in 
Gaul, there still remained a few free labourers or agricultural 
wage-earners, the last survivors of a vanished age. More 
often, but still not in large numbers, we meet with tenant- 
farmers, or métayers, holding on more or less long leases, 
and bound to the landowners by voluntary contracts, or, 
again, with pioneers engaged in bringing wasteland under 
cultivation (hétes), whose condition was superior to that of 
the mass of the inhabitants of the countryside. Such were 
the small cattle-farmers of the Celtic countries—dairy- 
farmers, as Seebohm calls them—who entered into stock 
leases with rich landowners, or the tenant-farmers (in 
serath), who took land-leases for a term of seven years, or 
the tenant métayers (in dxerath), who were less independent 
and hired out their services as coloni paying a produce rent. 

Such also were the independent cultivators of tenth- 
century Germany—the hérigen—who were, in a sense, the 
ancestors of the villeins of the next period, and who formed 
at this time about half the rural population. Recruited 


partly among the pioneer colonists and partly among the old © a 
coloni, they acquired, if not the ownership of the soil, at _ 


least the use of a part of the land which belonged to their 

lords, paying in return fixed and moderate dues and limited 

labour services, with guarantees set down in their contracts 

or consecrated by tradition and custom. In the north of 

Gaul free tenant-farmers were tending to disappear, so that 

on the domains of Saint-Germain-des-Prés barely eight house- 
90 


RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 


holds of free cultivators (ingenui) are to be found, as 
against 2,851 households of colonit or semi-serfs (lides) ; 
nevertheless, elsewhere—in Touraine, Anjou, Maine, and 
Provence—they persisted for some time longer, until the 
moment when the great landowners found it more advan- 
tageous to rely exclusively upon the labour of coloni or serfs. 
For the purpose of colonization, it was found necessary all 
over Western Christendom to offer special advantages to men 
who would undertake the reclamation of the soil and who 
were known as hospites or hétes. These are even to be found 
on the great domains, where colonization was already far 
advanced. At Saint-Germain-des-Prés we meet with seventy- 
one, at Neuville-Saint-Vaast thirty-seven, as against twenty- 
eight coloni. The holding of the hospes was doubtless often 
revocable at will and subject to the same payments as that 
of the colonus, but in general he enjoyed special advantages. 
Nor is it rare in the ninth and tenth centuries to find in 
Gaul free peasants (liberi, ingenut, rustici), who cultivated 
lands on leases which stipulated the payment of a cens or 
very small quit-rent, varying from a third to a bare twelfth 
of the produce. There were also tenants on Church lands, 
whose contract (precarium) laid down a kind of perpetual 
leasehold, which was advantageous to them. In England 
there existed similarly in the tenth century a class of 
dependent cultivators, who were placed under the jurisdic- 
tion (soc) of a great landowner, but who owed only limited 
dues and preserved their personal liberty and the right to 
quit the seigniorial domain. They were known as socmanni 
liberi, allodiarvi, and villani; and this last term was to persist 
as the designation of this class in the West during the feudal 
age. In Italy, where free cultivators (conductores) were still 
to be met with in parts of the country at the beginning of 
the seventh century, there finally prevailed a form analogous 
to the Gallo-Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and. Germanic villeinage. 
From the Lombard period onwards the class of massan liberi, 
or livellarit (free cultivators and tenants), grew, now by 
means of long leases (fitto or emphyteusis), now by leases 
limited to five years in the case of what were called precaria, 
and twenty years in the contract known as livello. They had 
the right, like the ahrimanns, to be present at the assemblies ; 
they could leave the estate when their lease was up, and they 
91 


s 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


— 
eee 2 
‘i. 
fe 
Spa 


paid a fixed annual rent (canon), in kind or in money, usually 
equivalent to a third of the produce, together with two or 
three weeks of corvées each year, and a few small boon pay- 
ments. Bobbio had as many as 300 of these free manentes, 
some of whom, being old serfs or freedmen, were bound to 
remain on the domain. In proportion as the need of coloniza- 
tion made itself felt, this class of manentes or villeins grew 
steadily throughout the West. 

Beneath it the mass of coloni maintained their position 
for some time, the more fortunate of them destined to rise 
into villeinage, the less fortunate to fall into serfdom. This 
class existed in the Celtic countries, where the colonus was 
called a tog, as well as in the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic 
lands, where he was called cotter, bordar, tributarius, lidus, 
aldion; while in the Romance lands he kept the name of 
colonus. Sometimes, like the bordar or cotter, he held only 
a cottage and a few parcels of land; sometimes, like the 
majority of tenants in the same position, he cultivated a 
more extensive holding. In principle he possessed personal 
liberty; he was a freeman (ingenuus), and the holdings 
which he worked were characterized as manses ingenuitles. 
In the ninth century the lides, tributarii, or coloni, still 
formed a considerable part of the population of the country- 
side. In Germany, on the domains of the bishopric of Augs- 
burg, there were 1,041 manses ingenuiles, as against 466 
servile manses, and on one estate of the Abbey of Lorsch 
there were twenty of these free manses out of a total of 
thirty-eight. At Saint-Germain-des-Prés there were 2,000 
households of coloni and only 851 of serfs. 

The condition of this class of society grew worse. Its 
liberty was purely theoretical, since the colonus was deprived 
of all political rights. In general, save among the Celts, 
although the colonus theoretically possessed the right to bear 
arms and to plead in a court of law, even against his master, 
these prerogatives were in practice nullified by the fact that 


he was in direct dependence on the landowner, having none — 


of the privileges of citizenship as against him, and holding 

him as master or lord. To this lord he was bound to pay 

heavy dues, a poll tax, or chevage, paid on the head of the 

colonus, and a land tax (agrier, champart, terrage), which 

was a payment in kind or in money, varying from a third to 
92 


“are 


RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 


a tenth or twelfth of the revenue of the soil. He owed 
customary dues for the right to use lands, woods, or pastures 
on the lord’s demesne, and that demesne was cultivated by 
means of his labour services. At Bobbio, for example, the 
colont (massarit) together owed the abbey 5,000 workdays a 
year. Doubtless the colonus had some advantages. He 
could found a family, contract a legal marriage, and dispose 
of his ** hoard’ of personal belongings. He lived an inde- 
pendent life upon his separate holding (colonia, manse), and 
was not bound to submit to the superintendence of a bailiff. 
His family had full right of inheritance over his holding 
(sors, hereditas). His rent was fixed, and was, above all, 
payable in kind, a mode of payment which the peasant 
prefers. It seems sometimes to have been moderate in 
amount, and it has been shown that at Saint-Germain-des- 
Prés in the ninth century it was not more than seventeen 
frances the hectare. As to the corvées, they were fixed, and 
were sometimes as few as twelve or fourteen days in the year. 
But if the colonus was not always downtrodden, he was in 
subjection, bound to perpetual obedience, and without re- 
dress against the possible tyranny of his lord. In actual 
fact, he became subject to tallage and corvée at will, and 
more often than not his condition became so much like that 
of the rural slave as to be indistinguishable from it. In the 
ninth and tenth centuries the fusion of these two classes was 
to give rise to the class of serfs. 

Slavery, indeed, which had revived into new life during 
the two centuries of the invasions, was tending to become 
transformed and to disappear during the last four centuries 
of the Dark Ages. Just as the lack of labour and the needs 
of agrarian colonization forced the landowners to bind down 
the colonus to the soil, so also it became necessary to keep 
the slave on the land and to encourage his labour by raising 
his status. Moreover, Christianity, which proclaims the 
dignity and equality of all human beings, sapped the 
foundations of the institution of slavery. It is true that 
war, misery, criminal justice, and- civil law continued to 
augment the ranks of those who were slaves by birth, 
and there were slave-markets and slave-traders. Human 
cattle abounded still, and the price of slaves fell even 
lower, so low that in 725 it was between twelve and 

93 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


fifteen gold pieces for children and women. In Ireland an 
adult female slave was worth three milch cows. All the 
social classes which had access to landownership—kings, 
nobles, bishops, clerks, monks, freemen—possessed slaves. 
It was even advantageous to be a slave of the royal domain 
(fiscelanus) or on an ecclesiastical estate (servus ecclesias- 
ticus), because a certain status and a few privileges attached 
to these. The position of the slave was still at first a very 
hard one; he had no civil personality and no legal family; 
he was master neither of his wife, nor of his children, nor of 
his possessions; he was classed with the beasts, and in a 
barbarous age was subjected to treatment at which humanity 
shudders. But little by little, under the influence of 
economic necessity, which caused a greater and greater 
value to be attached to his life and labour, and under the 
action of those Gospel maxims of charity which the leaders 
of religion professed, slavery grew milder. The sale of slaves 
was regulated or prohibited, their life was guaranteed by 
religious or civil law, their spiritual personality was recog- 
nized, since they were admitted to the priesthood, and their 
moral value was elevated, since they were proclaimed to be 
sons of the same God as their master, and, like him, destined 
for the rewards and punishments of the future life. The 
marriage of a slave and certain of his family rights were 
recognized. He acquired the beginnings of a civil status. 
His right to movable property was recognized, since he was 
allowed to own his *‘ hoard ’’ of possessions. The Sabbath 


rest was assured to him, and his masters were taught that — 


they had certain charitable duties towards him. 

The greater number of slaves became, during this period, 
cultivators (servi rustici, mancipia, ancille, operarti, mas- 
sari) or agricultural labourers. Some, grouped in gangs, 


laboured on the lord’s demesne, or looked after his cattle. 


These were the servi non casatt. The greater number in the 
ninth and tenth centuries, known as servi casati, curtisant, 
mansionariu, hobari, were scattered on holdings on the great 
domains, living on the piece of land and in the hut assigned 
to them by their master, who wished to interest them in the 
work of cultivation and to rid himself of the trouble of 
feeding them. To both, but above all to the latter, en- 
franchisement brought, as its first benefit, personal liberty. 
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RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 


The Christian Church, to its honour, helped forward the 
liberation of slaves with all its might, and made their 
emancipation the ‘*‘ good work’’ par eacellence. Popes, 
bishops, and monks sought to put an end to slavery, and 
their example inspired kings and nobles. Moreover, in the 
great work of colonization which was going on, capital itself 
was not slow to recognize what a powerful stimulus the grant 
of freedom was to labour. This is the reason why through- 
out the West enfranchisements multiplied in all sorts of 
forms—by a formal act before the king, or in church, or by 
will, or by simple letter of enfranchisement. Nothing dis- 
tinguished the freedmen from one another save their Roman 
or Germanic names—on the one hand libertus, romanus, on 
the other lides. This emancipation did not produce a new 
class of landowners or freemen, since the freedmen re- 
mained under the patronage of their master, tied to the soil 
and bound to the payment of various services, but it had 
the result of raising millions of men and their families to a 
sort of semi-freedom and, above all, of hastening the forma- 
tion of a new social class—that of serfs of the glebe—into 
which were finally merged the fallen coloni, the freedmen, 
and the rural slaves. 

An old name—that of serfs (servi or slaves)—came, in 
fact, to denote a huge new class, which grew up above 
slavery. The greater number of cultivators and stock-raisers 
were grouped in this category, so that throughout Western 
Christendom serf and peasant, servus and rusticus, became 
in general synonymous. The colonial, lidile, or servile hold- 
ings or manses, which were at first distinct from one another, 
became in the end the same, because they were subject to the 
same payments, rents, services, and corvées, and because 
their holders were under the same obligations and the same 
authority—that of the landowner, lord, and master. Apart 
from all law, by the mere force of custom, the mere stimulus 
of self-interest, which forced the owners of the soil to cut up 
their domains into holdings, in order the better to exploit 
them by the help of small cultivators, serfdom became the 
predominant condition of the inhabitants of the country- 
side. Each serf received a holding, known under different 
names in different countries—here hoba, hufe, hide, there 
manse, mas, meix—which varied in size, but in Gaul and 

95 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Germany was as large as ten to thirty hectares, the size 
necessary for the support of a family. The great domain was 
progressively divided up into peasant holdings. The Abbey 
of Saint-Germain-de-Prés possessed 1,646 of these in the ninth 
century, and the great estate of Marengo in Italy 1,300; 
those of Bobbio numbered from 380 to 8,000. According to 
the district, the number of cultivators on an Italian curtis 
varied from 20 to 6,500. Each peasant family averaged four 
or five persons. The manse itself grew smaller as the number 
of small holdings increased. 

The cultivator lived with his family in his cottage or hut, 
in the midst of ploughlands, vines, and meadows which he 
cultivated, and within easy reach of woods and pastures, 
which he was allowed to use. An association was thus 
formed between capital and labour, between the owner and 
the cultivator, which each found to his advantage. The 
owner guaranteed to the cultivator the enjoyment of enough 
land to allow him to maintain himself and his family. He 
granted to the men on his estate rights of use over his woods 
and pastures. He ground their grain at his mill, and pressed 
their apples, olives, and grapes in his press; he repaired or 
made their tools at his forge, and brewed their barley in his 
brewhouse. He thus placed at their disposal costly estab- 
lishments, which the peasants would have been unable to 
create for themselves. He was bound to feed them in time 
of famine, he provided them with spiritual help by organizing 
a chapel and providing a priest to serve the rural parish, he 
safeguarded them against outside attack by assuring them of 
the protection of his strong arm and his justice. The serf, 
on his side, was not master of his land, but he enjoyed a 
perpetual usufruct over it, he could not be expelled, and 
his family inherited it, even when the father had incurred 
sentence of death. He found upon this land, which some- 
times even took the name of free domain (sors, hereditas, 
alodium), stability and security of existence, since the un- 
attached individual was then a mere outlaw, a vagabond 
without hearth or home, the destined prey of slavery or 
hunger. If it was to the interest of the lord to keep the 
servile family in order to cultivate the small holding, which 
would have remained sterile without it, the servile family 
found it no less to its own advantage to remain on this soil, 

96 


RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 


where it was born, which its labour had made fertile, and 
whence it drew the elements of existence. There the serf 
founded a home blessed by religion, inviolable and sacred as 
that of the freeman, since it was based on the indissolubility 
of Christian marriage. The serf was the equal of his master 
before God, and, once emancipated, he might even become 
his superior, since he was eligible to be a priest or a monk. 
The son of a goatherd sat in the episcopal chair at Rheims, 
the first bishopric of Gaul, in the time of Louis the Pious. 
The wife of the servile peasant became the Christian mother, 
protected during her years of motherhood, and free of almost 
all corvées, for which she was allowed to substitute some 
domestic work or money payment. The serf could now live 
in the midst of a wife and children, who worked at his side 
and were his before they were the lord’s. In return for a 
strict obedience, a complete subordination, and an exact 
payment of his dues, he could live on his holding in relative 
security. Elevated henceforward to a higher moral and 
material position, owner of a home, and quasi-owner of land 
of which he had the use and retained a part of the fruits, he 
learned for the first time the virtue and the value of labour. 
Serfdom was a great economic and social advance upon 
slavery. But it was still only a transitory state, precarious 
and imperfect, which delivered over the peasant classes to 
an often arbitrary exploitation by the lords of the soil. 
In truth, the servile masses were still held within tight 
bonds, to the great advantage of the landed proprietors. 
The serf, who lacked all civil personality, was still only an 
object of property, a homo in potestate, as he was called. 
He had no legal status; the law knew him not. Like the 
live-stock on the demesne, he could be sold, exchanged, 
handed over together with the land and the cattle. The 
members of his family, like the ‘‘ brood”? of animals, had 
no guarantee against separation. He needed his lord’s 
consent to marry, and could possess only his stock of 
movables, a few heads of cattle, and personal gains or 
** winnings,’” nor could he transmit these to his children, 
save by the authorization of his lord. That lord was his sole 
representative in justice and exercised an unlimited authority 
over him; there was no redress against the violence of the 
seigniorial power. In fact, the self-interest of the landowner 
97 H 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


was the sole rule which limited his demands upon the peasant. 
It was upon this peasant that the lord lived. At Priim, for 
instance, the abbey maintained itself by the aid of the 6,000 
bushels of corn, the 4,000 hogsheads of wine, the 20,000 eggs, 
the payments of flax (600 pounds a year) and poultry (600 
fowls) furnished to it by the tenants. It was their labour 
alone which permitted the demesne to be cultivated. At 
Priim they furnished as many as 70,000 days of labour and 
4,090 carting services. It has been noted, it is true, that on 
certain monastic estates the servile labourer paid no more than 
ten to twenty-three francs rent per hectare. But such con- 
ditions seem to have been obtained but rarely by the peasants. 
In practice the lord was free to pile up at will rents, corvées, 
customary payments for the use of woods or pastures, rights 
of feorm or hospitality, works, suffrages or petty obligations, 
poll taxes and succession taxes. The arbitrary character of 
the lords’ rule, aggravated still more by that of their agents, 
too often caused serfdom to degenerate into a state not 
unlike that of the old slavery. 

The life of the rural classes during this period of the 
Middle Ages remained full of uncertainty... Rough and coarse, 
it differed little from the conditions of existence in the bar- 
barian ages. In the Celtic lands the peasant lived in huts 
made of branches, or in veritable burrows, rarely in hamlets ~ 
(trefs). The Anglo-Saxon cultivators preferred to group 
themselves into villages (tuns), where each had his wooden 
house (ham), cut off from neighbours by sacred boundaries, 
by ancestral oaks adorned with figures of animals, or by 
poles set up in the midst of marshes. There the peasant 
lived a half-barbarous existence in his muddy hut, with its 
few sticks of furniture and floor of beaten earth, side by side 
with his animals and not unlike them. In the Germanic 
lands of the Continent the peasants were sometimes grouped 
into more or less considerable villages (dorfen), lying along 
the roads, with the lands of the rural commune round them, 
or sometimes scattered in hamlets (weiller, villaria) on the 
great domains. In a certain number of regions—Frisia, the 
Low Countries, the lands of the Salian Franks, the Alamanni, 
and the Bajuvarii—they preferred the isolated farm (hof, 
heim, huts), protected by solid doors and a stockade of strong 
planks and guarded at night by dogs, standing in the shade 

98 


RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 


of great trees close to some spring. The house was some- 
times of wood and sometimes of rubble, square, rudely fur- 
nished with wooden seats and benches. The stables and 
barns stood next to the common room in which the whole 
family lived round the hearth. A hole in the roof sufficed 
to let the light in and the smoke out. 

Even in Gaul the townships (vici) and agglomerations of 
people formed in the centre of the great estate (villa) gave 
place, from the eighth and ninth centuries onward, to a 
multitude of villages and hamlets, where only fifty to sixty- 
five had been known two centuries before. They took the 
name of a saint, in memory of their monastic origin, or. of 
their lord, to which they added characteristic suffixes (court, 
ville, inge, ingen, villier, villard). Over a large part of the 
Gallo-Roman territory the system of separate farms still 
prevailed, notably in mountainous regions and in the old 
Celtic districts. Everywhere the peasant dwelt in hovels 
(pisilia, tuguria) made of branches or clay, and occasionally 
of stone, roughly and scantily furnished. In Italy, where 
malaria raged, and where the length of the coastline favoured 
piracy, the old townships (vici) had been abandoned, but 
innumerable little villages had sprung up on the newly re- 
claimed lands, and there were many new townships. They 
were often grouped in the shadow of fortresses, furnished 
with watch-towers, and they were fain to avoid isolation. 

Everywhere the rural classes made their garments out of 
the flax or wool which they worked, and the skins of beasts 
which they reared or hunted. Cloaks, tunics, and breeches 
of linen or coarse cloth, and the skins of animals sufficed for 
their clothing. The peasants usually wore their hair short 
or shaved their heads; certain laws obliged them to do so, 
for long hair was the mark of the freeman. They wore woollen 
or fur caps, and often went barefoot or shod only in the 
roughest of shoes. Their food was simple and frugal. Oat- 
meal among the Celts, barley bread, or bread made of a 
mixture of rye, barley, and oats, or of beans, among the 
Anglo-Saxons, rye, and rarely wheaten bread in the old 
Romance countries, was the basis of their food, together with 
milk, cheese, and butter, the latter having been introduced 
into Germany by the Roman populations. Their only meat 
was pork or bacon, and they made little use of beef or 

99 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


mutton. Fresh and salt fish and, above all, vegetables often 
furnished their tables. A sort of beer and a variety of cider 
made from the fruit of wild apple-trees served them for drink 
in the Celtic and German and even in the Gallo-Roman lands. 
In the Romance countries they drank water or a kind of light 
wine made from the dregs of the vintage. Thus generations 
of men lived, with no care for hygiene, and exposed to all 
those skin diseases to which the lack of such care gives rise, 
and to divers epidemics, fevers, small-pox, typhus, plague, 
dysentery. The problem of daily existence pursued them 
incessantly ; the least failure in the harvest in this small and 
enclosed world resulted in famine and aggravated the con- 
ditions of material life. 

The habits of the lower classes were yet more brutal than 
those of the upper classes. Brawls, murders, family ven- 
dettas, attacks on person or property, assaults upon women 
and children, were as frequent among the former as the 
latter. The peasant of those days was usually greedy, dis- 
solute, vindictive, sly, and a cheat; he was still showing the 
effects of slavery, and serfdom itself was not a school of - 
morality. Religion alone, which had spread, thanks to the 
multiplication of rural parishes, might have raised him above 
his instincts, were it not that it was too often, among the 
people and the aristocracy alike, reduced to superstitions or 
to external practices, and cumbered with a mass of pagan 
survivals. The ignorance of the peasant classes was pro- 
found, although monks and bishops tried to spread instruc- 
tion among them, and serfs were even at times admitted to 
the monastic or episcopal schools. The best hope for the 
future of the moral life of the countryside was to be found in 
the profound sense of solidarity of the rustic family, that 
united and disciplined group, that school of devotion and of 
labour, and in the existence of co-operative associations of 
families, villages, or domains (consorteria, vicinia, condoma). 
Throughout the West these associations lent each other a 
mutual assistance in the labour of the fields, in the reclama- 
tion of new land, and in the defence of the peasantry and of 
rural interests. It was in these little united societies that the 
lower classes of the country districts served their apprentice- 
ship in the responsibility, laborious effort, and energetic and 
intense life which were to prepare them for liberty. 

100 


RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 


During the last centuries of the Dark Ages the horizon 
seemed so closed to them in that direction that a profound 
unrest, despite the progress which had been realized, agitated 
the rural world of the West. Among the restless and violent 
elements in the population, this life fixed to the soil, this 
existence without any doors open to a more independent 
condition, this perpetual subjection which so often degene- 
rated into tyranny, provoked a sullen discontent. Thence 
came the passive resistance and ill-will (pravus eaxcessus) 
with which the serfs sometimes opposed their masters, and 
thence, too, that epidemic of desertions which bore away 
some of their number. Charters not infrequently mention 
lands abandoned by their cultivators (servi absarii), who took 
to the roads, grouped in bands of beggars and vagabonds, 
although harsh laws were laid down for bringing back the 
fugitives in chains and inflicting severe punishments upon 
them. Hence also those sly revenges, the vengeance of the 
weak against the oppressor, those poisonings and murders of 
individuals, which the law sought in vain to prevent. Hence, 
finally, those secret associations, brotherhoods, gilds, stellun- 
gen, prohibited by the authorities, wherein were organized 
seditious movements, and those peasant revolts which broke 
out on all sides in Italy, Gaul, Frisia, Flanders, Saxony, at 
irregular intervals during the eighth and ninth centuries. 
Then bands of serfs and their womenfolk, who were more 
cruel even than the men, attacked the seigniorial domains, 
pillaged, burned, tortured, massacred without discernment 
or pity, until a cruel repression brought them back for a 
while to obedience. A sort of dumb ferment, broken by 
sudden accesses of rage, and followed by long periods of 
prostration, was at work in this rural world, for which 
serfdom was only a provisional stage on the way to liberty 
and a greater well-being, those eternal aspirations of the 
people, which are so slowly realized. 


101 


CHAPTER X 


INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE IN THE WEST DURING THE LAST 
CENTURIES OF THE DARK AGES.—PARTIAL RENAISSANCE OF AN 
URBAN ECONOMY, 


In this Western society, where a natural economy prevailed, 
or where agricultural production was the foundation of 
existence, industrial production and exchange outside the 
limits of the domain held only a small, strictly limited place. 
Industry confined itself to meeting immediate needs, and, 
not having for its object the furnishing of external or distant 
markets, it was, above all, exercised upon the great domains. 
It was no more now than an annex of agriculture. In every 
family, to begin with, each member of the family community, 
according to sex, age, and aptitude, sought to produce the 
manufactured goods necessary for the elementary necessities 
of existence. The peasant built his house, made his furniture, 
repaired his ploughshares; his wife and daughters made 
bread, span wool or flax, and wove garments. He needed 
to seek hardly anything from the workshops of the domain. 
Raw materials were worked up in the same domestic circle 
which produced them, and each shared as consumer in the 
fruits of his labour as producer. There was no need in such 
a régime for specialization, complicated tools, or capital. 
Above this form of industrial production there was that 
of the great domain, where there could be division and 
specialization of labour, but where the sole object was still 
to provide for a larger group than the family, without seek- 
ing to feed outside markets. The economic needs of the 
domain were so simple that its industrial activity was some- 
what restricted. Moreover, its workmen were slaves or serfs, 
who had no other stimulus to effort but the fear of punish- 
ment, and no personal interest to spur them to work. They 
received from other slaves the raw materials, which were 
grown on the domain, so that in this system there were 
neither entrepreneurs nor capitalists to be remunerated, nor 
wages to be paid, nor cost and sale prices to be considered. 
Sometimes the workman worked by himself, in which case he 
102 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


had to pay servile dues (cens) to his master, in the form of 
manufactured articles. Sometimes he was grouped with 
other workmen in the seigniorial workshops. The degree 
of skill required for his trade was the criterion by which his 
personal value was determined in the eyes of his master and 
of the law,. and it was for this reason that the goldsmith, 
the smith, the miller, the weaver, or the embroideress were 
placed in the highest rank of the hierarchy of servile labour. 

Every great domain had a personnel of workmen, who 
are enumerated in Charlemagne’s famous capitulary De 
Villis, and in the charters and regulations of monasteries. 
These artisans were distributed in male workshops (camere) 
and female workshops (gynxcia, sereonx), grouped into gangs 
under the disciplinary authority of an hierarchy of foremen— 
ministeriales and magistri—who were of servile birth like 
themselves. They might number several hundreds in an 
imperial villa, in which all the industrial services were 
gathered—milling, baking, butchers’ work, brewing, fishing, 
fowling, carpentry, woodwork, ironwork, weaving, spinning, 
rope-making, saddlery, laundry work, and soap-making, up 
to the workshops of the goldsmiths and painters of coats-of- 
arms. The women were specially occupied in spinning and 
weaving flax and wool, which they dyed madder blue or 
vermilion, and in making and embroidering stuffs and 
garments. Every domain, however small, usually possessed 
its oven-keepers, bakers, butchers, brewers, weavers, fullers 
and dyers, a few goldsmiths, and, above all, smiths—indis- 
pensable in these rural surroundings—as well as shoemakers 
and needlewomen. This organization reached its highest 
point on monastic domains, where monks at the head of 
each service directed the different classes of workers, who 
had to provide the necessities of life. Episcopal domains 
were furnished with the same personnel. 

On the monastic domains, moreover, the monks were 
able to organize true schools of arts and crafts for difficult 
specialities; and artists (artifices), as distinct from artisans, 
were trained there. The reputation of the Limousine Abbey 
of Solignac in this respect is well known; it was there that 
the goldsmith Eligius worked. Furthermore, certain abbeys 
became industrial centres, in which there was a still further 
specialization of labour. Thus, whereas Corbie had only 

103 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


four chief workshops with a personnel of twenty-eight work- 
men, most of whom practised the indispensable trades, Saint- 
Riquier in the ninth century had already gathered round 
itself a real industrial town, in which the armourers, saddlers, 
binders of manuscripts, shoemakers, butchers, and fullers 
were grouped in separate streets according to their profes- 
sions, and bound to the payment of dues suitable to their 
trades. The same advanced organization is found at Sithieu 
(Saint-Omer), which depended upon the Abbey of Saint- 
Bertin. For the encouragement of servile craftsmen their 
dues were fixed, like those of their brethren of the soil; they 
were sometimes freed from paying the succession tax, called 
mainmorte, on their little stock of possessions. Already, 
with this degree of industrial organization on the domain, 
the workshops were able to produce enough to offer a small 
surplus for sale. 

In face of the competition of family industry and domain 
industry, the town workshop, which had, moreover, lost its 
markets, languished and disappeared, surviving only in 
certain occupations and certain regions, where the vestiges of 
Roman civilization still lingered on. It underwent a timid 
renaissance during the Carolingian period, without making 
any great advance. The old imperial manufactures had 
disappeared, and the manufacturing class which existed 
before the invasions existed no more. The collegia opificum, 
or Roman corporations, had been dissolved almost every- 
where, the artisans had been reduced to a servile condition 
when they remained in the precincts of the towns, and now 
paid dues to the bishop or lord. Nevertheless, the labour of 
free artisans still maintained a sporadic existence in certain 
districts, in Gaul, in Spain, and, above all, in Italy. At 
Naples at the beginning of the seventh century there were 
still craft gilds (artz), such as that of the soap-makers; and a 
fishermen’s gild has been found at Ravenna in the eighth 
century. The artisans of Comacchio were free to go from 
one town to another to work, and could acquire and sell land. 
In the last two centuries of the Dark Ages there also 
appeared artisans, living in industrial towns (vici), as at 
Saint-Riquier or Corbie, which had grown up on the domain, 
or else in villages (castra) outside the domains. These 
seigniorial workmen, some entirely free, some half free, were 

104 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


often migratory, called in to exercise their craft where it was 
needed, and bound only to the payment of certain dues in 
money or in kind. Such were the men whom we meet with 
at Soissons, Saint-Omer, Corbie, Saint-Riquier, Comacchio, 
Nonantola, and Brescia. They exercised the most diverse 
trades, and among them were to be found moneyers, tailors, 
shoemakers, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, masons, 
Weavers, and armourers. Sometimes it happened that they 
formed, either with or without authorization, societies for 
mutual assistance, or fraternities of a religious type (con- 
fratnie, geldonix, gilds) similar to the co-operative associa- 
tions (conserterix) of cultivators; these were forbidden by 
those in authority when they took the form of unions 
organized under an oath. 

In these various shapes—family, domain, free, or half 
free—industrial production remained inactive and with little 
variety. It served only to satisfy the simple needs of agri- 
cultural or pastoral societies, and produced only objects of | 
primary necessity. It was not until the Carolingian age, 
under the influence of the renaissance of Roman tradition 
brought about by the monasteries, and of the example of 
the Byzantine and Arab civilizations, that the industry of 
the West awoke for a moment from its torpor. 

The already perfected methods of Greco-Roman tech- 
nique had, in general, been lost. In parts of the West—for 
instance, in England—only the handmill was now known. 
Elsewhere, among the Visigoths of Spain, the use of water- 
power for mills had been preserved. The sole form of mineral 
industry which remained fairly active, because it was a 
primary necessity, was that of salt, which was collected by 
evaporation from the shores of the North Sea to the Mediter- 
ranean, especially at Batz and Guérande in Lower Poitou, 
and round Narbonne in the marshes of the Lower Po, or else 
by treating the waters of salt springs in Central Germany 
and in the districts of Salzburg, Lorraine, and Burgundy, or 
else from the saltpans of Cardona in Catalonia. But most of 
the iron, lead, and tin mines of the West were abandoned, 
because the skilled mining practised in the Roman period 
had been forgotten. It was only during the period of the 
Carolings and the Ottos that a feeble beginning was once 
more made in working those of Central Europe. A few 

105 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


mineral springs were used, notably in Sardinia and the 
Meuse country; those of Aix-la-Chapelle were patronized by 
Charlemagne. Very little was known about the working up 
of minerals and metals in the primitive little foundries which 
alone existed, and no technical progress was made in iron- 
working until the twelfth century. This useful metal was so 
rare that on one of Charlemagne’s domains there were to be 
found only two axes, two spades, two gimlets, a hatchet, and 
a plane. A hundredweight of iron was then worth fifty times 
as much as it fetched at the end of the nineteenth century, 
and the smith was the most honoured of technicians. Side 
by side with him, the armourer was considered a workman 
of the front rank; the Burgundians had acquired a certain 
reputation in this direction. A breastplate was worth six 
oxen or twelve cows, a swordbelt three, a helmet six, a sword 
seven, and a bit cost more than a horse. 

In the domain or monastic workshops, and in each family, 
only the more or less coarse linen or woollen fabrics were 
made to serve for clothes. Vestments were embroidered in 
the gynzcea and the nunneries, but all the fine or luxurious 
materials came from the Byzantine East. At the most in 
the Carolingian period there grew up among the free peasants 
of Frisia, who utilized the wool from their sheep, a specialized 
cloth industry, which for three centuries fed the commercial 
markets of the West. Some artisans introduced this industry 
into Mainz towards the ninth century. There were still a few 
urban workshops producing linens, notably at Metz, Treier, 
and Rheims. 

It was mainly the luxury trades which emerged above 
the other varieties of industrial activity. Their artisans 
worked for a restricted clientéle, but one which had the 
monopoly of wealth—the princes, great lords, prelates, and 
monasteries. It was to meet their demands that there were 
organized—above all, in the abbeys and sometimes in the 
towns—workshops of architects or masons, of sculptors, 
mosaic workers, painters, glaziers, goldsmiths, enamellers, 
who built or decorated churches, palaces, and seigniorial 
vulz. Luxury, which was at first, in the Merovingian age, 
coarse and half barbarous, became refined under Byzantine 
influence in the Carolingian period, more especially in Gaul 
and in Italy. Architects set up buildings inspired by those 
106 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


of Byzantium, out of which Romanesque architecture 
developed. Italian and Gallo-Roman artists went to 
Germany and England, bearing with them the tradition of 
stone-building, which was, for this reason, known as ‘* Italian 
work ”’ (opus italicum) in those countries. Sculptors renewed 
the degenerate art of ornamentation, and decorated baptis- 
teries and sarcophagi. Mosaic workers and painters of frescoes 
appeared in ever-increasing numbers to adorn palaces, monas- 
teries, and churches. Italian and Gallo-Roman glaziers 
spread their art from cloister to cloister. There still re- 
mained in the towns a few makers of porcelain. The most 
prosperous of all the industrial arts of the West was that of 
goldsmith work and enamelling, which provided churches 
with shrines and reliquaries, and individuals with gold and 
silver vessels and jewels. This art flourished at once in 
Ireland, England, Gaul, Spain, and Italy. It was carried on 
in the towns, on the great domains, and, above all, in the 
monastic workshops, notably in those of Solignac in Limousin 
and Saint-Denis, near Paris, the latter having been founded 
by the celebrated Eligius (Saint Eloi). There craftsmen 
worked, not only in precious materials, but also in glass and 
garnet, which they set in gold (verroterie cloisonnée), or in 
enamel, with which they inlaid metals. Engravers on 
delicate stones, bronze workers, ivory workers, and a few 
moneyers also sought to imitate the methods of Byzantine 
art in the West. Finally, a large number of artists, collected 
in the Irish, English, French, German, and Italian cloisters, 
particularly at Iona, Armagh, Jarrow, Lindisfarne, Saint- 
Martin de Tours, Rheims, Saint-Denis, Fulda, Saint-Gall, and 
Bobbio, copied manuscripts, decorating them with miniatures 
or adorning them with golden letters on a purple ground, 
for the collections of princes, bishops, or monasteries. But 
all these different manifestations of the arts were not enough 
to bring about the rise of a real industry, working for large 
markets and capable of supplying a wide trade. 

Commerce, severely shaken by the barbarian invasions, 
recovered a certain activity between the seventh and ninth 
centuries, but it was a limited activity. Business enjoyed 
small consideration, as in all backward eras in civilization, 
when the value of commercial relations in the hands of 
middlemen is ill-understood. The merchant in the Caro- 

107 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


lingian period passed often enough for a parasite or a 
trickster. Most of the fruits of production were consumed 
on the spot, and in many cases the intervention of the trader 
was unnecessary. ‘Traffic was often reduced to the mere 
barter of natural products, the exchange value of which was 
often determined by law, as though they were money. The 
merchant was not distinguished from the cultivator, and 
trade was carried on directly between producers. It has 
been pointed out, for instance, that the Anglo-Saxon laws 
do not mention the trader as such. In that state of civiliza- 
tion the intervention of commerce was necessary only to 
secure goods which the economy of the family or domain 
was unable to supply; that is to say, rare natural or 
manufactured articles, which were luxuries too expensive for 
the mass of the poor consumers of the West. It was only in 
the Lombard or Carolingian age that this situation was 
modified by the opening of easier relations with the Byzan- 
tine and Arab Empires, and, in addition, by the activity 
displayed in the workshops of the great domains, which 
could put into commerce their small surplus produce. 
Sovereigns and ecclesiastical bodies gave a certain protec- 
tion to trade and tried to improve and regulate its circulation 
by punishing forestallers, speculators, and usurers, by pub- 
lishing laws restricting the export of certain commodities, 
such as cereals, and by fixing the price of others. But their 
casual and sometimes clumsy intervention had only a slight 
effect, and sometimes had a harmful influence on the 
ephemeral commercial renaissance of this period. 
Nevertheless, a commercial class was timidly being 
formed. Migratory commerce, peddling, developed side by 
side with the sedentary local or regional commerce. The 
germs of international trade appeared with the traffic in 
articles of luxury, which was set on foot between the West 
on the one hand and Byzantium and the Arabs on the other, 
and in which the immensity of the gains compensated for the 
greatness of the risks. Indeed, we find in the Carolingian 
era not merely retailers and pedlars, but also wholesale 
merchants (negotiatores), such as those traders in the 
produce of the Levant (negotiatores transmarini) mentioned 
in the law of the Visigoths, or those merchants selling costly 
articles of luxury (mercemanni cariorum rerum mercatores), 
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PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


referred to in other texts. Already they have their depét 
(domus) at Paris, and elsewhere their street, as at Saint- 
Riquier or Verdun, besides their shops (stationes) and their 
tables in the markets. They are grouped into gilds or 
associations for mutual defence against violence, and for 
reciprocal insurance against the risks of war, spoliation, or 
fire. They set out in caravans with their ships or carts and 
their cargoes, stopping at fairs or at their entrepdts (emporia) 
in the chief ports or halting-places. They take with them 
their agents or slaves, even travellers and passengers. The 
clergy, to whom trade is forbidden, readily give them com- 
missions, and princes, notably beyond the Rhine, furnish 
them with armed escorts. Moreover, the merchants carry 
lance and sword. Not infrequently they have obtained fiscal 
or judicial privileges, which authorize their sojourn and 
their operations, guarantee their safety, and fix their tolls, 
especially among the Visigoths and Franks. A large number 
of these merchants were Orientals, Byzantines, or Syrians, 
who had veritable colonies in Italy, Spain, and Gaul, notably 
at Ravenna, Marseilles, Narbonne, Bordeaux, Tours, and 
Paris. Others were Jews who penetrated into the farthest 
ends of the Celtic lands, selling spices and buying slaves; 
they swarmed most of all in the cities of Spain, Languedoc, 
and Provence, and were even to be found at Paris, Clermont, 
and Orleans. The Westerners, in their turn, began to take 
part in large-scale commerce. From the sixth century on- 
wards Lombard merchants appeared at the fairs of Saint- 
Denis, and in the ninth the Venetians obtained from Charles 
the Fat their privilege of 883. On their side, too, the Gallo- 
Roman traders began to risk themselves in the trade with 
Ireland, Germany, and the Slav countries, while the Frisians 
became masters of the traffic of the Rhineland and Low 
Countries. 

This large-scale commerce brought with it a beginning in 
the organization of credit. In spite of ecclesiastical prohibi- 
tions, Jews and even clerics practised loans at interest, by 
virtue of an intermittent toleration. In Spain loans on 
bottomry were known. The currency, at first very rare and 
often reduced to the stock of old Roman moneys, increased 
slightly, when kings all over the West reorganized workshops 
and began to strike money, the gold or silver sou, and then 

109 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


from the Carolingian period the latter only, which became 
the standard coin. Its intrinsic value was equivalent to four 
francs thirty, and its relative value to between twenty-eight 
francs thirty and forty-three francs fifty. But since precious 
metals were rare, the coinage in circulation remained in- 
sufficient, and recourse often had to be had to the system of 
barter. In spite of the adoption of the Roman weights and 
measures by the barbarians, there was such disorder in the 
Western states that the Carolingian muid or hogshead came 
to represent twice the capacity of the ancient modius, and 
the pound weight varied between 327 and 400 grammes, so 
that there was ample opportunity for fraud. 

The Roman methods of transport no longer existed. The 
imperial posts, restored for a short time by Theodoric in 
Italy, disappeared in Gaul from the sixth century. The 
Carolingians tried to restore and keep up the Roman roads, 
fallen into disrepair, by means of forced labour. Both they 
and the Visigothic kings regulated the width of roads and 
put them, together with navigable rivers, under the protec- 
tion of public law. But these regulations were not observed 
for long, and roads and tracks of all kinds were left alone. 
Transport was slow and difficult—upon the backs of men or 
of sumpter beasts, or by means of heavy carts drawn by 
oxen and horses. As in primitive times, river was often 
preferred to road transport. Monks and merchants were 
very ready to make use of it, and regular fleets, which had 
their stopping-places (portus), circulated on the great rivers 
of Gaul and Southern Germany. But no active movement 
was possible on account of the degradation of the roads, the 
insufficient upkeep of the rivers, the multiplicity of tolls, and 
the persistent menace of brigandage. 

Nevertheless, in a few regions of the West commerce 
woke to a feeble life again. Along the valleys of the Rhone, 
Rhine, Danube, Main, Scheldt, and Meuse merchandise came 
from east and south. By the same routes and across the 
passes of the Alps the raw materials of Central and Northern 
Kurope—amber, skins, furs, and slaves—reached Upper 
Italy. Merchants met at the fairs, which often coincided 
with pilgrimages. The fair of Troyes was in existence from 
the fifth century, that of Saint-Denis, or Lendit, was founded 
in the seventh (629), and drew an enormous gathering of 

110 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


traders during four months of the year. In the Low 
Countries there appeared the fairs of Thourout and Messines. 
In the neighbourhood of abbeys and important towns weekly 
markets were organized. Sea-borne trade became more 
animated, and in order to reap its benefits merchants risked 
the continual dangers of piracy. It awoke even as far as the 
Atlantic Ocean and the Channel, and pressed into the North 
Sea. In return for the salt, wines, oil, linens, and cloth 
which they received from Gaul at the hands of Gallo-Roman 
traders, the Celts of Ireland and Wales were bold enough to 
brave the seas in their leather coracles, and carried their skins 
and salt meat to the Continent. But this traffic was infini- 
tesimal, as was that of the Anglo-Saxons, who had become 
confirmed landlubbers, and, turning their backs to the sea, 
left the Frisians and the Gallo-Romans to monopolize com- 
merce between their island and the Continent, to which they 
sent skins and unworked metals, lead, tin, and copper. The 
Frisians, on the contrary, foreshadowing the future fortune 
of the Netherlands, invented the type of large-decked ship 
(hogge) which was best suited to the northern seas, and made 
their ports of Dursteede and Sluys into active commercial 
centres, trading from the Baltic as far as the estuary of the 
Seine. In the Channel and the Atlantic the Gallic ports, 
Boulogne (whose lighthouse was restored by Charlemagne), 
Quentovic at the mouth of the Canche in Ponthieu, and, 
above all, Rouen, Bordeaux, and Nantes, maintained increas- 
ingly active relations with the Low Countries, the British 
Isles, and Spain. 

But the Mediterranean remained the real centre of this 
large-scale commerce. It was the true intermediary between 
the half-barbarous West and the East, the home of civiliza- 
tion; it was the natural road for that luxury traffic which 
then overtopped all the others. By the Mediterranean the 
ports of Eastern Spain and Southern Gaul, especially Nar- 
bonne, Marseilles, and Arles, as well as those of Lombard 
Italy, received the silken and cotton tissues and worked 
leathers of the Byzantine Empire and the Arab caliphates, 
the cloths and carpets of Antioch and Laodicea, the flax and 
papyrus of Egypt, the wines of Syria and Cyprus, the per- 
fumes of Arabia, the spices, pearls, and precious stones of 
the Far East and India, and the ivory of Africa, in exchange 

111 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


for the raw materials of the West. The restored relations 
with the Levant were never to cease again, and it was their 
persistence which brought about the great renaissance of 
movable wealth two centuries later. 

The first result of this revival of industrial and com- 
mercial activity was the partial renaissance of urban life. In 
the old Roman lands a large number of cities (oppida, civit- 
ates) rose again in the midst of their ruins. The majority 
were pale shadows of their past, but some owed a partial 
return of their ancient prosperity to their geographical situa- 
tion at the intersection of natural routes. In addition, in 
many parts of the West new towns were born in the shadow 
of episcopal power, so that the names of city and bishopric 
became synonymous. Im the fortified enclosures (castra), 
which multiplied and served also to denote urban groups, a 
crowd of little centres of population were likewise formed. 
By analogy a number of centres of seigniorial domains 
(vill), protected by fortified stockades, received agglomera- 
tions of subjects, and thus became nuclei of urban life, 
and gave to the towns of the future their name of villes or 
vills. But it was, above all, industry and commerce which 
gave rise, especially in the West European plain, or on 
the edge of highways and rivers, to the birth of industrial 
boroughs, entrepéts, markets, halting-places (portus), which 
attracted population and gave rise to more important urban 
groups. These had as yet no fixed name and were known 
variously, in different countries, as urbes, curtes, oppida, 
castra, burgs, burchs, so indefinite as yet was their character. 

The unevenness with which this renaissance of urban life 
developed exactly reflects the profound differences which 
separated the Western countries, from the point of view of 
the revival of industry and commerce. The Celtic districts, 
where a pastoral régime and a primitive economy reigned, 
had no towns; and, indeed, trade played so small a part 
there that market-right does not appear in Wales before the 
Anglo-Norman conquest. Anglo-Saxon England possessed 
only numerous fortified villages (burghs), and a very few 
places of commerce (ports). The most populous of the 
English towns, London or Winchester, numbered no more 
than 8,000 inhabitants, and the total number of town 
dwellers in 1060 was a bare 166,000, of whom 11,000 to 25,000 

112 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


were free burgesses, out of a total population of 1,500,000. 
Similarly, in Central and Northern Germany the numerous 
strongholds (burgs) and royal towns (urbes regix) founded 
in the ninth and tenth centuries were little more than fortified 
enclosures, inhabited by peasant-soldiers (milites agrarii). 
The agglomerations of people round episcopal sees and 
monasteries, such as Bremen, Hamburg, and Magdeburg, 
were as yet of very little importance. Urban life developed 
principally in the same region, crossed by the Scheldt, the 
Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, in which it had formerly 
taken root in Roman times; here in the ninth and tenth 
centuries there grew up Ghent, Cambrai, Liége, Maestricht, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Treier, Metz, the capital of Austrasia, 
Cologne, Mainz, Worms, Speier, Bale, and the ‘‘ populous ”’ 
Strasburg. This zone was the richest and most active part 
of the Carolingian Empire. The urban renaissance there, as 
in the Main and Danube lands, was linked with that of 
commerce. 

On the rivers which met the roads from the Alps, the 
East, and Central Europe there grew up Wurzburg, Augs- 
burg, Passau, and Ratisbon, ‘‘ the meeting-places of mer- 
chants and of manufacturers,’’ if we may believe a writer 
who visited them in 887. In Gaul it was similarly on the 
main trade routes that towns were reorganized, such as Toul, 
Verdun, Arras, Soissons, Paris, Rheims, Lyons, Vienne, 
Orleans, Tours, Poitiers, and Toulouse, while in Visigothic 
Spain there flourished Saragossa, Carthagena, Valencia, 
Cadiz, Seville, and, above all, Toledo, the splendour of which 
struck the Arab conquerors. But it was chiefly in Italy, that 
animated home of the urban life of antiquity, that towns 
were reconstituted most rapidly, near fortresses or the places 
where fairs (mercata) or weekly markets (fora) were held, on 
the outskirts (suburbia) of monasteries, and on the sites of 
Roman cities. Milan was the queen of these restored cities, 
among which were also Verona, Padua, Modena, Bologna, 
and Pisa, and beside which there rose new centres such as 
Ferrara and Pavia. 

But in spite of all, town life still languished, even in 
Italy, because the true political, social, and economic activity 
of the time was concentrated in the great rural domains. 
This is why only a minute portion of the population gathered 

113 I 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


in the towns, the average size of which was from 1,000 to 
1,500 persons in the tenth century, and the most populous 
of which in France and Germany barely reached 7,000 or 
8,000 inhabitants. The town, which of old had been closely 
united with the country in a single district (civitas), was 
now isolated, It vegetated and took on the aspect of a large 
village, which, in the case of an old Roman town, seemed 
like a dwarf in the armour of a giant. It had become rural, 
and in its empty spaces were gardens, vineyards, and 
ploughed fields. The only thing which distinguished it was 
that it possessed fortified walls, furnished with gates and 
towers (Milan had 810 of these), and that within it there 
were to be found palace-fortresses or old Roman buildings, 
converted into strongholds, and numerous churches, side by 
side with the ruins of ancient monuments, which were strewn 
over the ground. The winding roads, stony or muddy or 
dusty, were flanked by houses made of wood or clay, 
covered with thatch, dark and smoky, possessed of neither 
chimneys nor windows. In the suburbs there lived a 
wretched population of artisans and small traders. Life 
there was monotonous and gloomy. 

These towns had no political or judicial unity. Adminis- 
trative and judicial authority and the functions of economic 
regulation were quarrelled over by rival powers, high officials, 
counts or dukes or judges, who held sway from the fortress 
(castrum), or bishops, who were masters of the city, the 
centre of religious life, even castellans and other feudal 
lords, who possessed fortified palaces or towers. The 
autonomous Roman organizations, courts, and councils had 
disappeared. Alone in a few centres, under the control of 
agents of the crown, there were organized assemblies of 
notables, landed proprietors, or freemen (vicini, ahrimanns), 
who took part in the administration of the town. But the 
greater number of the inhabitants of the town—artisans, 
merchants, gardeners, cultivators—were indistinguishable in 
their general condition from the countryfolk round them. 
They were reduced like these to villeinage and serfdom, and 
subjected to the same obligations. The agrarian economy 
weakened the urban economy to the point of stifling it, or 
else forced it to vegetate beneath its law. 

Just at the moment when a renaissance of economic life 

114, 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


was beginning in the West a fresh crisis suddenly arrested its 
evolution and almost ruined the new civilization, which was 
being thus painfully elaborated. In the ninth and tenth 
centuries new invasions covered the West with ruins. The 
Scandinavian pirates, or Northmen, renewed for almost a 
century (830-911) the sinister exploits of the Germans, 
massacred the people and reduced them to slavery, burned 
the towns, and pillaged or ruined Christian Germany, the 
Low Countries, Western France, Scotland, Ireland, and 
England. In the East the Magyars, kinsmen of the Huns 
and the Avars, spread desolation in the Danube lands and in 
Central Europe, Northern Italy, and the east of France. In 
the south the Saracens, pirates of Berber or Arab -race, 
carried their ravages into the islands and coasts of Italy, and 
into Provence and Dauphiné. But this time resistance was 
organized; the new military class of feudalism opposed a 
solid wall to the last of the invasions. In the tenth century 
the Scandinavians were converted to Christianity and 
founded stable settlements in Frisia, the north of Scotland 
and England, the Low Countries, and Neustria (911), where 
they became the champions of Christian civilization. The 
Magyars, stayed in their course by the Ottos (985-955), 
founded a Christian kingdom in Hungary. The Saracens 
were thrown back upon the islands. By 950 the new danger 
had been exorcised. Almost everywhere, with the exception 
of Ireland and Scotland, which fell back into barbarism, the 
new civilization which had been born in the West was saved, 
and the feudal age began. 

An immense effort lasting for six centuries had been 
necessary to elaborate the new society. The fall of the 
Roman Empire seemed to have resulted in irreparable 
disaster, which dragged humanity back to the worst ages 
of its history, ruined every kind of production, restored 
slavery, substituted anarchy for order and poverty for 
wealth, and delivered the world over to the brutal force of 
barbarism. But by good fortune the Byzantine Empire had 
been able to put a stop to this work of retrogression and 
destruction in the East. It had shown that but for the 
‘Invasions a normal evolution would have been possible, and 
that from Roman institutions there might have issued a new 
order of things, born of the ancient culture itself. It had 

115 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


been the first to hold up and stay the movement of the in- 
vasions, and it maintained intact for eight centuries a power- 
ful state, in which was preserved the brilliant civilization 
which it had received, and of which it had become the sole 
repository. It had brought lands back to cultivation and 
restored agricultural production. If it had not succeeded 
in preventing the growth of an aristocracy and of great 
landed properties, it had at least safeguarded the preroga- 
tives of the central power and protected small ownership. 
It had been able partially to maintain the middle class of 
small landed proprietors and the free artisans of the towns, 
as well as the great mercantile or industrial associations. If 
it had not prevented the formation of serfdom, it had worked 
for the disappearance of slavery. It had given a prodigious 
development to industry and commerce, and had made the 
Christian Europe of the East the incomparable centre of the 
world’s wealth and civilization. 

The work of the Christian West had been less brilliant, 
more toilsome, and slower. There only a few men of genius 
were able imperfectly and momentarily to re-establish the 
power of the state, and their range of action was limited. 
The Church, a corporation with vaster and more continuous 
designs, had more success. Popes and monks took up the 
work of Rome and laboured at the diffusion of Christian 
civilization, the heir to a large part of the civilization of 
Rome. It was thanks to them, and to the more intelligent 
elements among the aristocratic and popular classes, that the 
West was able to rise from among the ruins heaped up by 
Asiatic, Slav, or Germanic barbarism. A first attempt at 
colonization had brought about the reconquest of part of 
the soil, which had fallen back into a wilderness, and had 
revived agricultural production. To the primitive forms of 
ownership, tribal property, property of the village com- 
munity, property of the undivided family, there were sub- 
stituted, in an increasingly large proportion, forms more 
suited to stimulate economic activity, such as private 
property, vested either in the individual or in the family. 
But in Western Christendom this progress had been partially 
annihilated by the extension of the great domains. The 
aristocracy had seized the land, to the detriment of the 
small free proprietors. The absence of a strong central 

116 


PRODUCTION AND EXCHANGE 


authority had allowed powerful bodies, such as the Church 
and the military class, to seize upon dominion as well as 
property, and to make general those systems of patronage, 
commendation, and benefice, out of which the feudal system 
was evolved. Millions of men had thus found themselves 
subjected to the domination of a few thousands. For the old 
free landowners and the coloni this transformation had been 
a fall. For the majority of other inhabitants of the West it 
must be conceded that it had been an improvement. Slavery 
had been almost wiped out, and the multitudes, who had 
no means of livelihood other than the cultivation of the 
land, had found in serfdom a far more tolerable refuge than 
the ancient slavery, while the great landowners were thus 
able to secure the means of exploiting the landed capital, of 
which they held a quasi-monopoly. A first stage had been 
reached under the influence of forces which were almost 
entirely economic in character. The mass of the peasantry 
had escaped from the degrading condition of slaves, and 
had acquired two inestimable possessions—human person- 
ality and the stability of the home. But the hard existence 
which they still led gave no hint of the era of liberation, 
which they were to know two centuries later. 

In spite of the predominance of the régime of agricultural 
economy which characterized the early Middle Ages in the 
West, the economy of movable wealth had made a timid 
reappearance. Regional markets had been organized, and a 
beginning had even been made in international commerce. 
Industrial production was reviving on the domains of princes 
and monasteries, or in the resuscitated towns. Western 
Christendom needed now only a framework strong enough to 
preserve it from another collapse into barbarism, and a new 
lever, that of liberty, to raise the latent powers of a re- 
generated world. Hitherto it had been the East Roman 
Empire which had been in the van in the history of labour; 
its rdle was now to pass to the West, where a society full of 
vigour had arisen. The great work of the one had been to 
preserve the ancient civilization; the other was destined to 
inaugurate a civilization of its own, superior in greatness 
to any which had gone before. 


117 


ee’ 
mS PS) 


BOOK II 


CHAPTER I 


THE FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST.—THE RULING CLASSES AND THE 
OWNERSHIP OF THE SOIL. 


THE first period of the Middle Ages bequeathed to the West 
a political, social, and economic régime, which had assumed 
definite shape by the tenth century, and which reached the 
height of its power in the three centuries which followed. 
This régime, which we call feudalism, provided a sort of 
frame for the activities of labour during some 400 years. 

A publicist, Adalbero, Bishop of Laon, has indicated 
plainly enough its main principle, which was that of a 
division of social functions. ‘* God’s house,’’ he writes, 
** which men think to be one, is threefold; some pray in it, 
some fight in it, and some work in it.’’ In order to allow 
the first two classes, the clerks and the soldiers, to accom- 
plish their superior work, they must enjoy a monopoly of 
the sole existing capital, the land, which alone ensures them 
a domination founded upon their natural mission, and 
guarantees their economic independence. The other classes 
must hold themselves fortunate if, in exchange for the 
spiritual and material protection extended to them, they 
are permitted to enjoy the produce of this capital. Their 
labour is but the legitimate payment for the patronage thus 
granted to them. 

At the time of the dissolution of the Carolingian Empire 
and the disorders of the last invasions, this division of social 
labour did indeed present some show of reason. It was the 
Church which had safeguarded and still preserved civiliza- 
tion. It was the warriors, the ‘‘ soldiers”? (milites), as the 
Middle Ages called the feudal knights, who, bound to each 
other by the duties of vassalage, of which the chief was 
military service, saved the Christian West from complete 
dissolution. They had introduced some elements of order 
and organization into the general disorder and disorganiza- 
tion. The feudal contract was then the useful and necessary 
119 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


form of the social contract, and everywhere throughout 
Western Christendom the feudal régime, born of vassalage, 
commendation and patronage, institutions which stood 
for solidarity and protection, had supplied the place of 
the weak or absent state, whose task of government it had 
assumed either in virtue of a mandate (or ‘* immunity ’’) 
conferred upon it by the sovereign power, or else by 
usurpation. 

The military and ecclesiastical classes had at the same 
time based their social and political power upon a solid 
economic foundation. They had succeeded in getting the 
soil of the West into their hands. The double maxim of 
French feudal law sets forth this conception in its most 
logical form: ‘‘ No lord without land’’ was the primary 
declaration, and the corollary ‘‘ No land without a lord ”’ 
followed naturally. Lands, offices, money payments, become 
in the same way possessions reserved to the ruling classes. 
Functions or offices (‘‘ honours’’) became assimilated with 
domains granted for life or for a term of years (‘“‘ benefices’’), 
and then on a hereditary title; together they formed a single 
category of property, the fief, which was the solid basis of 
the fortune of these classes. The feudal system imposed 
itself upon the whole West, modified, it is true, by the 
previous traditions and the particular organization of each 
country. Its most logical form, French feudalism, con- 
quered England, Northern Spain, the two Sicilies, and the 
Levant, while a less fully evolved form, German feudalism, 
adapted itself to the institutions of the Low Countries and 
the North of Italy. 

The feudal régime, in its various aspects, was incom- 
patible with the old forms of ownership, both with the 
collective property of the village and with free individual 
ownership, which hindered its expansion and evaded its 
monopoly. Everywhere common lands which once belonged 
to tribal or village communities, the marks of England and 
Germany, the allmends of the Germanic lands, the communia 
or commons of the Latin countries, were, as a rule, trans- 
formed into private or seigniorial possessions. By virtue of 
the right of appropriation attaching to assarts, the area of 
the common lands was continually diminished to the profit 
of lay and ecclesiastical lordships, or of their non-noble 

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FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST 


tenants, who undertook to bring them under cultivation 
and to pay to the lord as rent a part of the produce of the 
appropriated lands. In most cases the lords seized the 
common lands as their property, while allowing the use 
thereof to the community of roturiers and serfs in exchange 
for a rent. . Nevertheless, a small number of rural com- 
munities in Germanic countries, and notably in the Nether- 
_ lands, Switzerland, and other parts of Germany, succeeded, 
even in the full tide of feudalism, in preserving certain 
marks, the last survivals of the collective property of the 
village, and in maintaining them as late as the fifteenth 
century. 

The small or moderate-sized free properties were also 
overthrown by the spread of the feudal régime. In the 
greater part of France, the Rhineland, the Low Countries, 
England, Italy, and Spain, free holdings, usually known 
as allods, were transformed perforce into fiefs because 
the lord looked sourly upon these lands, which were 
exempt from rents and services, and upon which he could 
exercise no rights of justice or of police. They formed so 
many inviolable and independent lordships, in the midst of 
the seigniorial estates. By means of intimidation, threats, 
persuasion, force, the feudal powers set themselves to bring 
about their disappearance and transformation into fiefs. 
They were only partially successful in Germany, Spain, and 
Italy, but they succeeded more effectively in England, the 
Low Countries, and France. In Germany free properties 
diminished in number in the Rhineland, but survived in a 
large measure in Switzerland, the Tyrol, Upper Bavaria, 
Swabia, Thuringia, Saxony, Frisia, and Holstein, thanks to 
the power of the village communities and the comparative 
weakness of feudal organization in these regions between the 
tenth and the twelfth centuries. Here there continued to 
subsist peasants who held their property directly from the 
. prince (schiffenbaren, biergelden), some of whom, the 
lehnbauern, could even acquire fiefs, while others were 
veritable territorial sovereigns in their lands, which were 
known as “fiefs of the sun’? (sonnenlehen). These small 
free proprietors of the countryside (freie bauern), subject only 
to the royal jurisdiction, had courts formed of their peers, 
under the presidency of a royal delegate, the amtmann, and 

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LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


enjoyed the right to carry arms like nobles. In Northern 
Spain, in the shelter of their wild valleys, the communities 
of the Pyrenees, groups of foresters and shepherds owned 
their own woods and pastures, concluded conventions with 
each other, made federations and alliances, and acted as 
sovereign powers. In the Basque provinces of Alava, 
Guiptzcoa, and Vizcaya, and even in Castile, whole terri- 
tories, the behetrias, were peopled with freemen owning 
their own lands, who had decided to put themselves under 
protection, but who had retained the right to choose their 
lord out of a particular family, or out of all those among 
which it suited them to make choice, and who changed him 
when they pleased. Even in other parts of Northern Spain 
groups of free landowners were to be met with. But in 
general, they were obliged to resign themselves to accepting 
seigniorial patronage (patrocinio), and to consent to do 
homage and pay certain services, while still reserving the 
power to change their patron. Most of these landowners, 
as in France, entered the ranks of vassals. In Italy free 
proprietors also survived from place to place, particularly in 
Lombardy and Tuscany, where they were known as ahri- 
manns, and in the two Sicilies, where the Normans called 
them alleutiers, after the French fashion. The Republic of 
San Marino is probably one of these ancient allodial estates. 
Nevertheless, in all these countries, and even in Germany, 
feudal property gained steadily in importance at the expense 
of small or moderate-sized properties, and the latter often 
had to become semi-feudalized, by accepting aeons in 
order to survive at all. 

In other parts of the West, where feudalism was more 
strongly organized, or where the struggle was more difficult 
for the small proprietors, it usually ended to their dis- 
advantage. In France the allod maintained itself sporadi- 
cally in Normandy, where the legendary kingdom of Yvetot 
is a survival of it, and where burgage tenure (tenure en 
bourgage) seems to have been a form of free property, as 
was that of the vavasours. The same thing happened in 
Nivernais, Brittany, Auvergne, and, above all, in Aquitaine, 
Guienne, Gascony, Béarn, Bigorre, Dauphiné, and Languedoc, 
where the allodial owners sometimes formed themselves into 
defensive associations. In the Low Countries, Zeeland, 

122 


FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST 


Holland, Frisia, maritime Flanders, Campine, and Eastern 
Brabant, free property persisted by reason of the energy of 
their population of sailors and pioneers, and of their isola- 
tion in the midst of marsh and heath. But everywhere else 
victory went to feudal property, such a victory as was won 
in England after the Norman Conquest, which, indeed, only 
completed the work of the Anglo-Saxon period. In 1086, 
the Norman terrier, Domesday Book, recorded only 44,531 
free landowners out of a total of 1,500,000 inhabitants in 
the Anglo-Norman kingdom. Only a quarter of these were 
bound to military service, the usual charge which lay upon 
free land. The rest were bound to pay light services and 
even a few labour works in return for their holdings, although 
they shared with the nobility the obligation of investiture 
and the oath of fidelity. As the thirteenth century 
approached the absolute freedom of these small properties 
tended to disappear throughout the West, and the allodial 
estate tended to approximate either to noble land or to 
peasant land (terre roturiére), to some of the obligations 
upon which it was already bound. 

The grip of the military and ecclesiastical class upon 
landed property and upon most of the fruits of labour is 
thus a characteristic of the feudal régime. The Church, in 
- the first place, was able to play a large part in the seizure 
of landed property and of the wealth represented thereby. 
By usurping royal domains and sovereign rights, still more 
‘by gifts due to the piety of the faithful and by acquisitions 
due to the clearance of waste lands, it acquired the greater 
part of the land of Western Europe, and was well able to 
turn it to the most profitable use. Bishops and abbots took 
their place in the feudal hierarchy, accepted or submitted to 
most of its obligations, and exercised sovereign rights over 
their subjects. They patiently repaired the losses to which 
the violence of laymen and the intermittent secularizations 
decreed by rulers subjected their patrimony. One part of 
the landed property of the Church, it is true, was not 
assimilated to the fiefs; those lands which were granted, 
according to the formula, ‘‘ for the service of God’’ or in 
‘¢ frankalmoin,’’ were in principle free of rents and services, 
and held only of God, but in fact they were soon attached 
to the feudal hierarchy, since the lords exercised therein 

1238 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


rights of justice and patronage. Many ecclesiastical domains 
were, moreover, true fiefs, distinct altogether from lands 
held in frankalmoin. Their extent was considerable. In 
England certain bishops had fiefs which furnished as many 
as sixty knights to the army, and a large part of the soil 
of England and Ireland was owned by the Anglo-Norman 
church. In Germany a full half of the soil was in the hands 
of the Church. ‘‘ The bishops own everything there,”’ said 
a King of France in the twelfth century. The Rhineland, 
in particular, was nothing more or less than ‘‘a street of 
priests,’ as the famous saying went. In the Low Countries 
the bishoprics and the twenty-seven Benedictine abbeys 
stood in the front rank of landed proprietors. In France 
certain abbeys owned over 100,000 hectares of land, and 
bishops, such as the Bishop of Langres, held a whole county. 
In Spain, where gifts multiplied and the kings reserved a 
third (tercias reales) of all conquered lands for the Church, 
abbeys and bishoprics appropriated vast territories; those 
of the Archbishop of Santiago had a circuit of not less than 
twenty-four miles. In Lombardy the Church owned a third 
of the soil; the Bishop of Asti held 100,000 arpents of land; 
the Bishop of Florence owned 200 castles; the Abbey of 
Farfa, 182; and the Bishop of Bologna had 2,000 manses 
or domains. In the whole of the West the proportion of the 
soil which passed into the hands of the Church seems to have 
been between a third and a half of the whole. | 

The sovereign princes themselves were obliged to enter 
into the feudal framework, and the domains which they 
reserved for themselves, and upon which they based a good 
deal of their social power, took on a feudal character. They 
were far less adroit than the clerks, and they often, by means 
of alienations and grants, lost a part of this landed wealth, 
which suffered incessant changes. Sometimes, as in Anglo- 
Norman England, their power was great enough to enable 
them to build up a vast territorial reserve, made up in 1085 
of some 1,422 great estates, to which, in the twelfth century, 
they added the major part of the soil of Ireland, over and 
above forests, waste lands, disinherited lands, and the con- 
fiscated possessions of rebellious vassals. Thus it was that 
in 1188 they commanded the highest annual revenue of all 
the sovereigns of the West, £750,000 sterling, whereas the 

124 


FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST 


royal domain of the kings of France at the same period, 
although economically managed, only produced an annual 
income of six million pounds tournois.. Elsewhere, in the 
two Sicilies, the Norman kings were at one period able to 
gather together territorial resource sufficient to raise them 
to the second rank among the richest princes of the West. 
It was easy for the Spanish sovereigns to build up similar 
domains by conquest under the name of realengos. But 
the possessions of princes, like those of the feudal lords, 
were most frequently diminished by incessant grants of fiefs, 
or by the careless administration of those who held them. 
This was particularly marked in the case of the royal 
domains (kénigshufen, reichsgiiter), once so numerous, which 
the German dynasties had at their disposal and squandered 
with such complete lack of foresight. 

The rest of the soil of the West was occupied by the 
possessions of the nobility. They formed the totality of 
fiefs, and a fief consisted primarily in land, though functions 
or offices, pensions or perpetual revenues, were also granted 
in fief. Noble land was in principle a conditional and 
revocable property, over which the grantor reserved a 
superior right (the dominium), but it very quickly became 
a form of transmissible and even alienable property, under 
certain conditions designed to guarantee the execution of 
those pecuniary and military obligations which were bind- 
ing upon the vassal. The latter became the grantee by 
means of the symbolical ceremony of investiture and in 
return for the payment of a nominal rent. After the 
eleventh century a special deed of concession (aveu) was 
drawn up, and an inventory of the possessions granted was 
executed. In France and in countries where the French 
feudal régime prevailed—to wit, in England, the two Sicilies, 
and the Spanish March—all land was presumed to fall within 
this system of fiefs. Elsewhere—for example, in Italy—a title- 
deed was necessary in order that land should be recognized 
as of this quality. Similarly, the principle of the heredity 
of fiefs established itself in the north and centre of Italy 
later than in France, by virtue of the imperial constitution 
of Pavia. In the kingdom of Castile one part only of the 


1 A pound tournois was worth about a quarter of a pound sterling. 


125 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


feudal estates (honores, tierras de senorio) resembled the 
French fief; many of the other lands (tenencias, encomien- 
das, mandaciones) were given in the form of temporary and 
revocable grants for a life term by the kings during the 
period of reconquest. In Germany, where the Carolingian 
rule had left deep traces behind it, the transmission of the 
fief (lehn) remained subject to numerous restrictions; it re- 
mained inalienable and indivisible, and the right of succes- 
sion lay in the direct masculine line alone. It was not 
assimilated to noble land unless it was granted to a soldier 
or to an official, and the French adage (nulle terre sans 
seigneur) remained unknown to Germanic as to Italian 
law. Finally, there existed in Germany a form of tenure 
or benefice which was inferior to the fief, the eigen, or 
dienstgut, which was charged with duties to which the fief 
was not submitted, analogous in some ways with those 
appertaining to servile tenure in France. 

Noble property was subdivided among a multitude of co- 
sharers. The feudal system was founded upon a more or less 
complicated hierarchy of suzerains and vassals, united by 
ties of homage and fidelity, by a sworn oath and by certain 
obligations which were defined in the contract. The lord 
needed soldiers, and obtained them only by granting them 
a part of his domain. In return for the right to demand 
military service, attendance at his court, the aids which he 
might need at important crises in his existence, lodging, and 
entertainment for himself and his followers when on a 
journey, he was obliged to hand over to his vassal a sufficient 
portion of his property to enable the latter to support and 
arm himself and to maintain his family. The great estate 
was the one essential economic force for the noble, but it 
was always breaking into pieces, because the suzerain was 
continually obliged to build up his military resources, and 
could do so only by the grant of fiefs. Every time he gained 
a vassal he lost a part of his lands. The inconsiderable 
money payments which he drew from the latter on trans- 
mission or sale, or in similar circumstances, were in practice 
far from compensating for the loss of landed revenue, which 
he suffered every time that he created a new fief. 

Thus the number of noble landowners grew unceasingly 
as a result of this propagation of the feudal system. In 

126 


FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST 


France there existed, over and above some forty great fiefs 
(duchies and counties), an enormous mass of seigniorial 
domains held by castellans, viscounts, avoués, and knights. 
At the beginning of the twelfth century a Duke of Aquitaine 
led 12,000 of these upon a crusade. Only the poorest of the 
nobles, the esquires, were landless. In the Low Countries 
a great feudatory, the Duke of Brabant, had no less than 
3,000 vassals; below the great lords (potentes) was a very 
numerous military class (ordo militaris) of barons, viscounts, 
_castellans, and knights, not to mention the multitude of 
squireens (ministeriales) living the life of country gentlemen 
in their rustic forts of stone. In Germany below the eight 
dukes and the nobility of the first rank, which included 
counts, landgraves, margraves, burgraves, and landvogten, 
there flourished the order of free knights (frete ritter). In 
1180 Frederick Barbarossa was able to assemble as many 
as 40,000 of these knights, as well as 75 princes, at the Diet 
of Mainz. The German imperial army, in the twelfth 
century, usually contained 30,000 knights and 100,000 nobles, 
including esquires and varlets. The Germanic nobility, 
moreover, comprised also a numerous class, unknown in 
France, known as ministeriales, semi-servile nobles, who 
could be alienated and transmitted together with their land, 
and paid the mortuarium, but whose service and office raised 
-them to the rank of those permitted to acquire free lands 
and even serfs. In two countries only, England and the 
Two Sicilies, was there a clearly defined class of noble land- 
owners. In the former there were only 1,400 barons of the 
first rank, the tenants-in-chief beneath the king, and of these 
nine held between 100 and 798 manors apiece. Then came 
the knights, whose numbers fell from 7,871 in 1088 to about 
5,000 at the end of the twelfth century. In the lowest ranks 
are the tenants in serjeanty, who served as foot soldiers in 
the army. In Southern Italy, under the Norman dynasty, 
an official list, the Catalogue of Barons, reveals the existence 
of 4,233 nobles, mostly vassals of the second rank (milites, 
barones, minores). In Central and Northern Italy the great 
feudal houses, such as those of Verona, Montferrat, and Este, 
towered above a crowd of vassals and vavasours, beneath 
whom again was a nobility of service, officials of the 
Carolingian type, known as masnadores, who at one time 
127 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


owned as much as a third of the land of Tuscany. As to the 
Iberian kingdoms, the very conditions of their development, 
combined with the incessant conquests at the expense of 
the Moslems, brought about a multiplication of noble land- 
owners, ranging from those of the first rank, who were 
called *“‘the rich men’? (ricos hombres, magnates, opti- 
mates), and were almost as powerful as the kings in Aragon, 
to those of the second order, known sometimes as infanzones, 
vavasours (valvassores, vasallos), knights (caballeros), some- 
times, as in Italy, as masnaderos. Thus it was that some 
hundreds of thousands of men, both soldiers and officials, 
had taken possession of the land of the West, or had 
received more or less extensive portions of it in the form 
of fiefs. 

The property of the nobility sometimes took the form of 
great domains, but more often, in the case of fiefs belonging 
to the second rank of nobles, who were far more numerous, 
it took the form of medium-sized or small properties. The 
royal domains and those of the Church, on the contrary, 
can almost all be classed as great properties, though they 
were rarely concentrated, being usually scattered about. 
Nobles of the first rank might possess a considerable number 
of manors or domains. Thus in England the estates of one 
great baron comprised 793 farms or holdings spread over 
twenty counties. In Italy certain of the great lords had as 
many as 11,000 manses, and one is recorded to have held 
90,000 hectares in the eleventh century. Others held 500 to 
600 manses, and the Papacy itself had in one district a 
group of domains covering 78,541 hectares. But if a minority 
was thus fortified with vast possessions, the majority had to 
be content with less considerable domains, though even 
these, given the fact that the value of the land was less, were 
proportionately larger than are small or medium-sized estates 
to-day. In Dauphiné, for instance, a fief was composed of 
from three to twelve manses. In England there existed fiefs 
formed of three or four manors, or the territory of three or 
four villages. While large domains were gradually broken 
up by the grant of fiefs and by all sorts of alienations, small 
or medium fiefs were subdivided by dint of changes of 
ownership or partitions. The medium or small property 
tended to crumble into innumerable little holdings, some of 

128 


FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST 


which in Poitou and in Saintonge comprised only the fifth 
part of a manse. In the two Sicilies a quarter, or a fifth, or 
a seventh of a knight’s fee was not infrequently to be met 
with. In the Low Countries it was by no means rare to see 
the country squires driving their own ploughs and living the 
life of peasants, from whom they were distinguished only by 
their turbulence and ferocity. 

Nevertheless, a certain number of domains still preserved 
the characteristics of the great properties of the preceding 
period. They may best be compared with the plantations 
formed in new lands or in colonies in the eighteenth and 
ninteenth centuries, or with the vast possessions of the 
Russian aristocracy before the abolition of serfdom. In the 
central period of the Middle Ages the holders of these great 
domains—princes, bishops, monasteries, and the upper rank 
of the nobility—divided them into groups, which were 
variously named in the different countries. Such were the 
German fronhof, the English manor, the Alsatian colonge, 
the French predium or terra fiscalis, preserving the memory 
of the Carolingian fisc, which was a collection of several 
manors, and the Italian curtis, which corresponded to the 
French fise or massa. The ancient villa no longer subsisted, 
save as a more or less extensive territorial framework. Each 
group had its economic centre in one of the lord’s residences, 
the castle. This was often little more than a rough structure 
of unworked stone with a turfed enclosure, like a fortified 
farm, but in great seigniorial domains it was an imposing 
collection of buildings grouped round a donjon, where the 
lord dwelt, together with his family and his civil and military 
followers. The castle, which now replaced the villa as the 
lord’s dwelling-place, was built first of wood, then of stone, 
‘and fortified with greater and greater skill as time went on. 
It was at once a fortress, and the heart of the economic life 
of the estate. There his provisions and reserve stores were 
garnered in cellars and barns, and his live-stock in stables. 
There also were sometimes to be found gardens and orchards 
clustering under the walls of the enclosure, or even within it, 
and buildings such as wine-presses and ovens, the adjuncts of 
the farm. Such was likewise the appearance of the great 
abbeys, which were fortified and turreted in the same way, 
but which often enclosed huge granaries, barns, and stables. 

129 K 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Here the old system of economic administration was kept 
up, with its specialized offices (ministeria), under the control 
of the lord or the abbot. The great lay feudatories entrusted 
the organization of these offices to high officials—the marshal, 
the constable, the chamberlain, and the butler. Sometimes, 
as in the Low Countries, they even had a whole bureaucracy 
of notaries to transmit their orders. Usually each great 
centre of cultivation had its more humble agents called 
stewards, mayors, écoutétes, bailiffs, gastaldes, provosts, or 
judges, who supervised the work, sometimes with the assist- 
ance of a specialized staff of foresters, huntsmen, master 
swineherds, master grooms, and and other foremen in the 
various rural occupations. They supervised the cultivation 
of the domain, collected its produce in the central buildings, 
and undertook the economic organization of the whole estate. 

The property of each great domain, excluding the fiefs of 
vassals which had been detached from it, was made up of 
two unequal parts, the lord’s demesne and the holdings of 
peasants, both free roturiers and serfs. The former was 
made up of all the land directly farmed by the lord him- 
self. In some Western countries it was usually a third of 
the cultivated land. Some of these demesnes were as large 
as 130 to 140 hectares, and were ploughed by great teams of 
eight oxen. The lord cultivated them by means of corvées, 
free labour services, which his tenants, both roturiers and 
serfs, were bound to do for him. This reserved demesne 
might also include private vineyards, meadows, fishponds, 
and forests, but, as a rule, uncultivated lands, pastures, 
heaths, and woods, over which the lord usually possessed 
proprietory rights, remained undivided, and the use thereof 
was allowed within certain limits to his subjects. 

The medieval lord was a bad administrator, seldom fitted 
to farm his land himself, and at the same time a wasteful 
and improvident spendthrift. Thus in order to increase his 
revenues and to obtain the utmost from a soil which 
threatened to remain unproductive, he had a perfectly 
natural tendency to multiply tenants from whom he drew 
rents in money and in kind, more abundant than those 
which he could obtain himself from his demesne. Thus 
great domains tended more and more to break up into little 
farms granted to tenants. In France and in the North of 

130 


FEUDAL REGIME IN THE WEST 


Spain they were called manses, bordes, condamines, cabanes, 
quintanes, meix, colonges, casaux; in Germany, hufen and 
colonice; in Italy, massx, massarizie, casalini or corticelli; 
in‘England, holdings. Instead of the four to eight manses 
received by the vassal, a tenant usually obtained but one, 
but the services and payment which he rendered were a more 
important return from an economic point of view. This is 
why, notably in England and in Italy, two-thirds of the 
manor was usually cultivated in the form of roturier or 
servile holdings. 

Thus each great domain, which formed a self-contained 
and isolated organism, was able to suffice for the needs of 
the feudal landowner. He led the life of a soldier and leader 
of the state. The ‘‘ hereditary gendarmerie,’ which was his 
social function, and which allowed him to lead a largely 
parasitical existence, remained possible only by dint of his 
seizure of the land, and distribution of that land into fiefs 
and holdings. From the first he drew his military, from the 
second his economic, power. The feudal system in the last 
resort rested upon an organization which, in return for a 
protection, which was often illusory, placed the working 
classes at the mercy of the idle classes, and gave the land 
not to those who cultivated it, but to those who had been 
able to seize it. 


181 


CHAPTER II 


ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS OF THE 
WEST DURING THE EARLY FEUDAL PERIOD. 


SIDE by side with the minority who owned the soil, millions 
of men were, indeed, deprived of all rights of property, and 
it was the immense mass of the rural populations of the 
West who found themselves in this condition. An almost 
impassable gulf separated them from the landowning class. 
The peasants were all more or less dependent (hérigen, as 
was said in Germany); all were considered merely as instru- 
ments for the exploitation of the domain (villa), whence their 
name of villeins; all were regarded as socially valueless and 
esteemed solely for the economic value which they repre- 
sented. . 

They were not all, however, classed in the same category. 
There were among them free and half-free peasants, distinct 
from the serfs and the last slaves. On the one hand were 
the free villeins (vilains francs), on the other the servile 
villeins (vilains serfs), to use the French terms. This dis- 
tinction was found with divers variations all over the West, 
except in England, where since the Norman Conquest 
villeinage had become unified in the form of serfdom. But 
in Germany free villeinage was represented by free cultivators 
called freien landsassen, freie hintersassen, and by half-free 
peasants, the descendants, probably, of the freedmen or 
lites of the preceding age (halb freien, meier). In Alsace 
these censitaires, holding their land by payment of a cens, 
or quit-rent, occur again under the name of coloni (landsie- 
deln). They have some analogy with the lxeten of the Low 
Countries, with the villanos, pecheros, and juntores of Spain, 
and with the colont sedentes, manentes, and fictaiuoli of 
Italy. In France they formed the great class of peasant 
**labourers,’’ or roturiers (ruptuari), which was commonly 
amalgamated with that of the serfs under the general name 
of villeins (villani rustici, pagesi, nativi) or subjects (homines 
de potestate, hommes de peste), but which was distinguished 
therefrom by the title of franc or free. The distinctive 

132 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


characteristics of free villeinage were, on the one hand, the 
recognition of a man’s personal liberty, and, on the other, the 
contractual nature of his tenure. In principle he was a free- 
man like the noble, but in practice his liberty was apt to be 
remarkably attenuated. If some villeins, like the juniores 
of Castile, preserved the right, to change their domicile, the 
majority were unable to leave their holdings without the 
permission of the lord. They had none of those political 
rights which distinguished and elevated the noble class. It 
was only quite exceptionally that a few among them were 
called to the possession of fiefs or admitted to knighthood. 
The opinion of the upper classes would admit no point of 
contact between the tenant, even when free, and the noble 
landowner ; free and serf were regarded with the same disdain. 
In practice the free villein was almost as closely tied down 
as was the serf to the social rank in which Fate had placed 
him. | 

But the free villein’s land was, nevertheless, a degree 
higher than that of the servile villein. The former enjoyed 
the benefit of a contract, which the latter never knew. 
Tenure in villeinage was sharply distinguished from the fief, 
but it was distinguished no less sharply from servile tenure. 
As in the case of the fief, tenure in villeinage presupposed 
the retention of the actual ownership of the land by the lord, 
while at the same time the use thereof was granted to the 
free villein. Some lands—for instance, in Germany—were 
even granted with full rights of property, but without the 
obligation of military service. Usually the free villeins 
cultivated their holdings in virtue of real or fictitious leases 
with various names, such as bauaw a cens, précaires, main- 
fermes, champarts, and complants, the conditions of which 
differed greatly. Some granted the land for a term of years 
or for life, others on hereditary leases. Some conferred 
almost plenary possession upon the villein, as did the per- 
petual lease or locatairie perpétuelle of Languedoc, the 
métairie perpetuelle of the Limousine March, the albergement 
of Bugey, Savoy, and Dauphiné, the mainferme of the North 
of France and Belgium, the bordelage of Nivernais and 
Auvergne, and the fee farm (fiefferme) of Normandy. Lastly, 
there were leases which associated the owner and the farmer 
more intimately, assuring to the former, instead of a fixed 

183 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


cens or rent, a varying share (champart) in the annual 
produce of the villein’s farming. When the lord welcomes 
assarters on to his estate, he makes a sort of treaty with 
them, and the lease is called hostise; he stipulates, as in the 
ease of the champart, for the payment of a variable rent 
(cens) upon the land or house granted. Taking them alto- 
gether, tenures in villeinage fall into two great categories. 
Some—précaires, emphytéoses, fieffermes, censives, com- 
plants—guarantee to the landowner a fixed rent and the 
actual ownership of the land. Others—tenures or champarts 
and hostises—provide him with a certain proportion of 
revenue, analogous to the modern system of métayage. 

The free peasants who cultivated these lands did not owe 
homage or guard-service for them, but they were obliged to 
pay a part of the revenue in the form of a fixed or variable 
rent, usually called a cens (German zins, Spanish pecho, 
Italian fitto) in the first, and a champart in the second case. 
They were not landowners in the strict sense of the term, but 
for the most part they enjoyed the perpetual usufruct of the 
land; they had, in medieval terminology, property in use, in 
default of full or direct property. In certain countries—for 
instance, in Alsace—the peasant benefited by improvements 
(jus pal, or spade-right), which were held to belong to him. 
In France the complanteur shared the soil which had been 
planted with the landowner. Originally the villein held his 
land only by an inalienable life tenure, but contracts and 
customs soon transformed this peasant holding into a patri- 
monial possession like the fief. The villein was the true 
owner of the land, despite the services with which it was 
burdened. The majority of the free villeins of the West 
were able to hand on their holding to their children, like a 
real inheritance, by simply paying a succession due, called 
in France a double cens, relief, rachat, mortaille, in Spain 
luctuosa, in the Low Countries and in Germany mortuarium, 
besthaupt or vinicopium. This due was payable when the 
heirs entered upon possession. The land of the free villein 
could also be alienated, on the payment of other taxes (lods 
et ventes). The villein had the right of dividing it up as 
much as he desired and of cultivating it as he chose, unless 
his cultivation were subject to the champart. In most cases 
he benefited by the fixity of his dues, which could only be 

134 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


levied at stated times, mostly consisted of products of the 
soil, and had often to be collected by the lord at his own 
expense. Accessory money payments were low. Once his 
rents in money (cens, oublies) or in kind (champarts, agriers, 
terrages) were acquitted, the villein remained in legitimate 
possession of the rest of his revenue. 

There were even highly privileged tenants to be found 
in the ranks of villeinage. Such were the censitaires of 
monasteries and churches, who were called leten, cerocensu- 
ales, homines ecclesiastici, hommes de sainteur in Germany 
and the Low Countries, and abadengos in Spain; and such, 
too, were the censitaires of princes, such as the Spanish 
realengos. They were an object of envy to the rural masses. 
They paid more moderate rents, among which were numbered 
payments in wax for church lights, whence they got the 
name of cerocensuales; they performed a limited number of 
field works; they had only to pay light taxes on marriage; 
and they were not only free from the exactions of lay lords, 
but better protected against war and dearth. But the 
majority of free villeins, despite their rank of freemen and 
all the stipulations of contract and custom, possessed neither 
the right to carry arms for their own defence, nor, as a rule, 
the possibility of changing their domicile or their lord. They 
were shut out of political society and consequently had no 
real guarantee against oppression. The lord had not ‘‘ full 
enjoyment ’’ over them, as was recognized by the famous 
jurist Pierre de Fontaines in the thirteenth century ; but the 
sole guarantee which the villein possessed against an abuse 
of seigniorial power lay in the conscience of his lord. 
Between lord and villein there was no judge save God. To 
exact arbitrary payments from a free peasant was only a 
moral fault, a *‘ larceny ’? committed at the peril of the lord’s 
soul. But of what avail was such a restriction against the 
suggestions of selfishness or of cupidity? There was no 
remedy against arbitrary power. Hence it befell that, in 
spite of custom, the free villein was often subjected to labour 
services, payments in kind, monopolies, dues, the whole 
conglomeration of extortions which the age knew as exac- 
tions, maltétes, evil customs, and to a multitude of abuses, 
which time at length consecrated, and which increased still 
further the old obligations of the free tenant. 

135 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


The villein’s freedom was only a sort of semi-servitude, 
but his condition was, nevertheless, much better than that of 
the serf. It was serfdom which was, in the tenth, eleventh, 
and even in the twelfth century, the dominant social institu- 
tion as regards the great mass of the workers. Indeed, into 
the general class of serfs were confounded all the old cate- 
gories of hétes, freedmen, coloni, colliberti, and personal or 
household slaves. The human capital available for the 
exploitation of the seigniorial domains of France was com- 
posed of these hommes de corps—male and female serfs, who 
could be tallaged and subjected to mainmorte at will, and 
were known sometimes as questaux, sometimes as “‘ liege men 
of their bodies’? (hommes liges du corps), capitation men 
(hommes de capitation), natives (nativi). In Anglo-Norman 
England the 109,000 villeins entered in Domesday Book, who 
were labourers owning a pair of oxen and thirty to fifteen 
acres of land, were classed with the 90,000 cotters and 
bordars, who had no plough-teams, but only a cottage with 
a garden and five acres or so of land, and also with the 25,000 
agricultural bondsmen, whose condition was that of slaves, 
to form a single category analogous to that of the French and 
Norman serfs. These Anglo-Norman villeins, reduced to 
serfdom, formed more than three-quarters of the population 
of England from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. 
Germany possessed a large number of peasants of the same 
condition, called leibeigenen, eigenleute, unfree (unfreie), 
servants (knechte, servi, homines propru), because they 
were the property of others. In the Low Countries they were 
-given the name of tributaries or hagastalds, and in Spain 
they were known under various names—solariegos in Castile 
and Navarre, collazos in Navarre, villanos de parada in 
Aragon, pageses de remensa (peasants fixed to the soil) in 
Catalonia. Nine-tenths of the rural population of Italy also 
was composed of this class of cultivators, who were known 
as *‘ subjects ’’ (vassali homines, homines), or else under the 
ancient appellations of aldions, coloni, or censiles. 

Everywhere, whatever the name by which they were 
called, the ranks of the serfs were recruited in the same 
way—either by birth, by mixed marriages between free and 
servile persons, by the mere fact of dwelling upon servile soil, 
or as the result of a feudal war and the captivity resulting 

136 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


from it, or of a judicial sentence of condemnation. It even 
happened that men presented serfs, or offered up their 
children as serfs, to churches and convents. Better still, a 
man would sometimes offer himself, a rope round his neck 
and a penny on his head; and there was a whole class of 
serfs called, for this reason, oblates. Force, misery, piety— 
all increased the number of serfs, and before the twelfth 
century multitudes of people were often unable to obtain a 
home, a scrap of land, and their daily bread, save by accept- 
ing or begging for the condition of serfdom, even when they 
had not been born to it. 

There were, however, degrees of serfdom and a whole 
hierarchy of serfs. At the bottom of the ladder were 
domestic serfs (vernaculi) or artisans (operarii), called in 
England villeins in gross, who hardly differed from the old 
slaves, having no home of their own, but living in the lord’s 
house, where they were brought up and performed the 
humblest domestic services. A permanent sojourn in the 
lord’s household meant that they were the butt of insult and 
ill-treatment. Cruelly used, and beaten for the least fault, 
they formed a sort of proletariat of serfdom, exploited and 
embittered, aspiring, like the slaves of antiquity, only to 
~ escape by flight from the odious prison in which they were 
held captive. But at the top of the ladder there were, on 
the other hand, privileged serfs, such as the colliberts of the 
eastern provinces of France and of the Ile-de-France and 
Nivernais, whose families were not allowed to be dispersed, 
and who were probably freed from rights of formariage’ and 
mainmorte. Happiest of all were the royal and ecclesiastical 
serfs who dwelt upon the domains of sovereigns and of the 
secular or monastic Church, and enjoyed full juridical rights. 
They were less subject to being given away, sold, or ex- 
changed, and they possessed a material security and guaran- 
tees of well-being which ordinary serfs lacked. 

The great mass of ordinary serfs stood halfway between 
the rightless men at the bottom and the privileged men at 
the top. They were under similar obligations, and their 
condition was the same. The sole characteristic which dis- 


* Payable on the marriage of a serf to a person belonging to 
another lord’s estate. See below, p. 138. 


137 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


tinguished them from slaves was that they had a legal person- 
ality, which was recognized by custom or by law. Also, as 
soon as they were established upon a holding they could 
possess a home, a family, even a patrimony of movables; 
and the majority of them were in this position. But they 
had in no degree the free disposal of their persons. They 
were as much a part of the demesne as were the live-stock. 
They were considered as essential elements of farming capital, 
as economic securities. The loss of a family of serfs was as 
prejudicial to a lord as the loss of a number of his cattle— 
perhaps more prejudicial. Thus these human cattle were 
forbidden to abandon the land they cultivated, on pain of 
pursuit ; whithersoever they fled, they ran the risk, by virtue 
of the right of suite, or parée, of being captured and brought 
back to their original home. The serf was bequeathed, sold, 
exchanged, together with the land upon which he lived. He 
could not appear or give evidence in a court of justice, more 
especially in causes which concerned freemen. He was shut 
out of the ranks of the clergy. In England he was not 
admitted to serve on the jury or in assizes. Only a small 
number of serfs were able to obtain permission to leave the 
domain, while continuing to pay personal dues and pay- 
ments, or else abandoning their servile holding, together with 
a part of the possessions which they had been able to amass. 
Another not less serious restriction upon the liberty of the 
serf was the prohibition against contracting marriage outside 
the demesne, for fear that the children of such a marriage 
would escape the ownership of the lord. The serf could not 
contract a union of this kind without permission and an 
indemnity known as formariage, on pain of punishment and 
confiscation. In such a case certain fixed conventions ruled 
the division of the future servile family between the lords— 
concerned. Finally, no serf had the right of property. 
Servile tenure differed essentially from the tenure granted 
to the free villein. The latter was derived from an irrevoc-- 
able contract, whereas the former arose out of a purely 
voluntary and always revocable concession. The conditions 
and payments of the one were fixed and invariable; those of 
the other might be modified at the will of the lord, and 
aggravated if it so pleased him. The tenement of the free 
villein became hereditary and alienable, like a true property, 
138 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


but a servile tenement was never considered to be property, 
even in the sense of usufruct. In principle it could be neither 
inherited nor alienated, and the serf could not dispose of 
it by exchange, by sale, or by will. Nevertheless, in the 
interests of cultivation the lord was led to permit the serf to 
hand on the holding which he farmed, in order to stimulate 
the activity of the farmer’s labour. But the serf could make 
such a transmission only to his direct heir, and the latter had 
to redeem the servitude (mainmorte) wherewith the land 
was burdened by the payment of a tax. This tax was the 
indelible mark of a servile condition, and for this reason he 
was described as mainmortable. 

Finally, the servile farmer was bowed beneath special 
burdens, from which the free villein was legally exempt. 
The serf paid a capitation fee or chevage (capitalis census), 
a personal and annual tax of low amount (fourpence in 
France), but the outward and visible sign of his peculiar sub- 
ordination, as the obrok used to be in Russia. He paid a 
personal taille, another mark of subjection, and the amount 
of this payment, which was also called queste, tolte, exaction, 
forced loan, was dependent upon the will of the lord, who 
could thus, according to his own caprice, dispose of the whole 
movable fortune of the serf; that is to say, of the only 
property which the serf was able to possess. Originally the 
payment was marked in primitive fashion by a notch upon 
a wooden tally, split into two parts, of which tax-collector 
and taxpayer each retained one. Finally, the lord could call 
upon the serf for labour whenever he wanted it, in all 
circumstances and at all times. By virtue of works or 
corvées (corporis angariz, operx), some ordinary and some 
extraordinary (perangarizx), the serf was bound to cultivate 
the lord’s demesne, to cart his farm produce, to share in all 
the field work and in all the buildings undertaken by the 
lord. He was requisitioned for the upkeep of the castle and 
the escort of criminals, for relays, for the repair of roads 
and bridges, and for the defence of fortresses. His person, 
his labour, and the produce of his labour all belonged in 
theory to his lord. Such were the burdens peculiar to the 
servile peasant. 

But there were many others also, which he had to bear 
in a heavier degree than had the villeins who were likewise 

139 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


subject to them. These were payments in money and, above 
all, in kind, called champarts, complants, customs, which 
consisted of corn, wine, cattle, poultry, wax, gifts at certain 
times of year (salutes), and fees for the use of the undivided 
lands of the lordship. Like the villein, the serf had to 
submit to seigniorial monopolies, the banalités of the oven, 
the mill, and the winepress. Often he had to recognize the 
lord’s exclusive right of hunting and warren, and of keep- 
ing a dovecote, and his privilege of selling his vintage and 
wine before anyone else (banvin). To the lord, as to the 
head of a sovereign state, the villein and the serf were bound 
to render military service in person or to pay commutation 
taxes. They had to contribute to extraordinary taxes called 
aids, due on the knighting or marriage of the lord’s children, 
to provide his ransom, or to pay the costs of his crusading 
expeditions. In the same way they had to provide him with 
lodging, food, and other objects (rights of prise), and to 
entertain and board himself and his followers (procuration). 
They paid him yet more tolls for the right to use the roads, 
and to frequent markets, fairs, and ports. The seigniorial 
police and justice served as pretexts for fines and confisca- 
tions. With the exception of the clergy and the princes, the 
propertied classes were ignorant of sane methods of economic 
administration, and did not understand that the best means 
of increasing their landed revenue was to protect the peasant 
who procured it. For them, and still more for their harsh 
and rapacious agents—mayors, provosts, bailiffs, ammans, 
who often held their offices by heredity—the rural masses, 
** exploitable at will,’? were no more than human herds, to 
be used till they were utterly worn out, solely in the interests 
of the moment. 

No attempt was made to improve the economy of peasant 
production. The feudal classes were both ignorant of 
scientific agriculture and contemptuous of the labourer’s 
task ; they had no idea of encouraging or assisting his efforts 
to.obtain a better return from the soil. Left to himself, 
without guide, counsel, or support, possessing no capital, 
insufficient cattle, and inadequate tools (sometimes no more 
than shovel, spade, and wooden ploughshare), the villein 
continued to farm his holding according to the wasteful 
methods of extensive cultivation. He did not understand 

140 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


the rotation of crops, he was ignorant of the use of root or 
grass crops to recuperate the soil, he was sparing of manure. 
He practised to excess the customs of fallowing the land and 
burning weeds. Agricultural colonization made but slight 
progress during the first two centuries of this feudal period. 
The greater part of the soil of the West remained under 
heath, marsh, and forest; cereals, vines, and industrial crops 
occupied only a small area. The smaller live-stock still 
predominated in the byres, and pasturage still prevailed over 
meadows. Confined within the narrow limits of the manor, 
in which there were no sufficiently vigorous stimulants to 
excite him to increased production, the villein supplied only 
what was strictly necessary for his master and indispensable 
for the subsistence of his own family. 

His holding was as a rule fairly large, though it varied in 
size with the fertility of the soil. In Alsace it contained on 
an average 30 acres, in Germany 20 to 180 acres, in England 
15 to 30 acres, and in exceptional cases 50 acres, which was 
the usual size in France and elsewhere. It must be added 
that the peasant had a share in the use of the heaths, pasture- 
grounds, and woods belonging to the village community and 
the lord. But in certain countries, such as England, 
Germany, and the east of France, the arable lands were 
scattered in narrow strips, cultivated according to a common 
routine; and this, together with the extreme morcellement 
of the manse or holding in other parts, due to the introduc- 
tion of the principle of equal shares, rendered labour 
difficult and was a bar to agricultural improvements. More- 
over, there was nothing to encourage the villein to increase 
the value of his landed capital, since he was not its master, 
and it was not easy for him either to transmit it, or to sell 
it, or to alienate it at will, or even to gather in security the 
fruits of his labour. He had no encouragement to attempt 
an intensive cultivation, since he would not have had any 
opportunity to dispose of the supplementary produce which 
he would have drawn from it. Far from being the co- 
partner of the farmer, the landowner under the feudal régime 
was, as far as the peasant was concerned, a mere parasite, 
always harsh and always capricious, for whom any improve- 
ment in the soil was but the pretext for some new exaction. 
He discouraged initiative and dried up all energy at its 

141 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


source, by taking from the villein an exorbitant part of the 
fruits of his work, so that labour was half sterile. Indeed, 
the initial error of the feudal lords was that they exploited 
the peasant, instead of assisting him to exploit the land. 
Nevertheless, unintelligent as was agrarian economy 
during the first period of Western feudalism, it did at least 
secure for the peasants some of the elementary necessities of 
existence. In a society in which human life was dependent 
almost exclusively upon the enjoyment of land, the only 
thing which made it possible for millions of men to live at all 
was the occupation of parcels of that soil, which was the 
monopoly of the feudal classes. Bound to the land which 
enabled him to live, the villein was no longer what the slave 
had always been—a stray, a rootless being, a piece of furni- 
ture tossed about from estate to estate. He had his home, 
his cottage, his family. He knew nothing of the anguish of 
unemployment, the search for work, the anxiety which are 
the lot of the wage-earner. There was plenty of land, and 
every cultivator could be sure of obtaining a part of it, on a 
grant of free or servile tenure. If he could not own the 
landed capital, the villein was at least certain, by dint of his 
labour, of participating in the income therefrom. On the 
other hand, the master’s interests coincided with that of the 
peasant in securing him, if not the possession, at any rate 
the indefinite enjoyment, of the land. If the landowner 
jealously retained the actual property in the land for himself, ~ 
together with the major part of the revenues accruing from 
it, the villein, who alone by his labour made the continued 
existence of such revenues certain, found himself invested 
by means of a formal or tacit contract with a perpetual 
usufruct, hardly less valuable than complete property. He 
could hand on his holding to his heirs, despite many 
obstacles ; he even succeeded in obtaining permission to sell 
or exchange it. This type of possession is a step in the 
direction of the formation of peasant property, which was 
later on to appear. Meanwhile the villein with his usufruct 
enjoyed a certain independence in his holding, and could 
cultivate it as he liked. All that was asked of him was the 
exact fulfilment of his obligations. Finally, under the system 
of natural economy which then prevailed, the cultivator 
profited directly by the produce of his toil, since he consumed 
142 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


or himself retained the nett total which remained after his 
dues and payments had been acquitted. 

Although the villeins had no definite legal status, they 
did at least live under the protection of the contract or 
custom, which fixed, or tended to fix, their duties, and 
which recognized their rights. This stability was not estab- 
lished without effort, and it was subject to a number of 
restrictions. But as the necessity of bringing the land under 
cultivation became more urgent this concession almost im- 
posed itself upon all lords, who were solicitous of their own 
interests, which were bound up in the improvement of the 
soil. Thus the villeins were able to obtain a steadily increas- 
ing fixity of payments, which in the end sensibly improved 
their position, but to which only a few of them had attained 
by the eleventh century. If direct accession to landed 
capital was still withheld from them, they could already, by 
economy and ingenuity, obtain possession of movable capital— 
money, cattle, and reserve products of the soil. Thenceforth 
‘there existed, even among the serfs, certain classes of workers 
who had reached a condition of comparative comfort. In 
spite of customs and prejudices, the villein was not absolutely 
bound to his state. Sometimes an act of valour might raise 
him to the ranks of the nobility ; more often still his intelli- 
gence enabled him to become a clerk. The free villein could 
improve his state by changing his lord, and even the serf, 
despite all the rules of seigniorial farming, could with diffi- 
culty be kept upon the land against his will. So great was 
the need for labour that from this time onward attempts 
were made to attract the most hard-working and energetic 
individuals by special advantages and better treatment. 
Enfranchisement enabled a number of villeins to raise them- 
selves a step in the social hierarchy of the lower classes. The 
most adroit members of those classes even insinuated them- 
’ selves into the ranks of the administrative nobility. 

The villein might be defenceless against the arbitrary 
will of his lord, but he was usually sheltered from the attack 
of tyrannous neighbours. Seigniorial government here gave 
him a relative protection. There was as yet no analogy with 
the continuous security enjoyed by labour in modern society, 
but in feudal society a minimum of security was nevertheless 
obtained. The feudal régime was, in effect, born of a social 

143 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


necessity, of a contract of safety, the protection accorded by 
the soldier in exchange for the useful services of the peasant. 
The lord took charge of the military defence, policing, and 
administration of his tenants. It may be that he often 
showed himself a brutal and capricious protector, but at 
least, out of self-interest, he sought to perform these functions 
in such a way as not to diminish the number and value of 
his human capital. It is true that he did not admit his 
subjects to a share in the exercise of political rights and 
sedulously maintained them in a condition of dependence in 
this matter. But customs became established—the ex- 
pression of wisdom, experience, tradition, according to the 
German term (weisthiimer)—and commanded a _ respect 
which guaranteed to the peasants a certain minimum of 
privileges, which even the lord dared not violate. Thus in 
England the peasant could appeal to the royal court if he 
suffered violence from his master; in Germany he was 
allowed to interrupt his labour services in order to go and 
assist his wife in childbed; in many parts he had to be fed 
and sometimes given a small payment when he worked upon 
the lord’s demesne. Throughout the West he was permitted 
to group himself with his fellows in associations for common 
cultivation and police; he was called upon in his village 
assemblies to decide rules for pasture and the use of woods 
and waters, and, finally, was eligible to sit in the manor 


court which judged his peers. The seigniorial régime was not © 


a hell, in which the villein must abandon all hope; and, hard 
as it was for the peasant, it left him several openings in the 
direction of a better future. 

Nevertheless, during the first two centuries in which it 
prevailed, this régime was exceedingly hard. Although good 
and charitable lords were to be found, like Count Gérard 
d’Aurillac, who was canonized by the Church, and also in- 
telligent administrators, such as the Dukes of Normandy and 
the Counts of Flanders and Anjou, the majority of the 
feudal lords were exacting and capricious masters, incapable 
of controlling their violent passions. They liked to boast 
that they were responsible to God alone in their relations 
with their subjects, and the feudal conscience was a fragile 
protection, nor was it even invariably guided by an en- 
lightened selfishness. The feudatory did not realize the 

144 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


advantages of a more liberal régime than that which was 
ordinarily in use upon the domain. In every possible way 
he hindered the activity of his subjects; he would never 
moderate his dues; he burdened the cultivator with innumer- 
able taxes, which were prejudicial to good farming. The 
peasant was unable to dispose of his own time or of the 
produce of his holding, and he could not even enjoy the 
common lands without coming up against abusive restric- 
tions. He was subjected to heavy monopolies, in exchange 
for services, in assessing the remuneration for which he had 
not been consulted. At every step he was met by seigniorial 
regulations or bans, which cramped his initiative. He had 
to see his fields devastated by rabbits and pigeons bred in 
the lord’s warrens and dovecotes, or by wild animals which 
were preserved for the lord’s hunting. At any moment he 
could be forced to give up his carts, or cattle, or provisions, 
by virtue of the droit de prise, and to ruin himself in order 
to lodge and feed the lord and his officials, by virtue of the 
rights of hospitality (gite) and procuration. He was not free 
either to buy or to sell. The perpetual tutelage of the lord 
paralyzed his labour. 

It was for these reasons that the material and moral 
existence of the peasants was so uncertain and often so 
wretched before the twelfth century. Certainly there were 
regions in which it was tolerable, such as the Rhineland, 
Aquitaine, Flanders, part of the north of France, and the 
Mediterranean South, but in general it shows in sombre 
colours during the first 150 years of the feudal era in the 
West. Isolated in their farms, or more often grouped into the 
thousands of villages which had grown up upon the territory 
of the dismembered villas of antiquity, or often, in the south, 
collected in little fortified townships, the villeins lived day 
by day under material conditions not far removed from dis- 
comfort and actual want. The mass of cultivators was made 
up of poor folk, who were bowed beneath the weight of rents 
and services, and who had no means of improving their daily 
life. Their dwelling-place was a hovel, with thatched roof 
and floor of trodden earth, furnished with the utmost scant- 
ness. The type remained unchanged for centuries. Their 
clothes of woollen or linen cloth were rough and coarse, their 
food was frugal. The villein, says a moralist of the early 

145 L 


— 
re 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


twelfth century, never drinks the fruit of his vine nor tastes 
a scrap of good food; only too happy is he if he can keep his 
black bread and some of his butter and cheese. 


S’il a grasse oie ou la géline, 
Un gastel de blanche farine, 
A son seigneur tot le destine. 


If he have fat goose or hen, 
Cake of white flour in his bin, 
*Tis his lord who all must win. 


He may keep only what is strictly necessary. By the 
social law of his time, says Bishop Adalbero, he is bound 
before all else to furnish the propertied classes with ‘* money, 
food, and clothes’’?; and another pious publicist, Etienne 
de Fougéres, agrees that the function of the villein is to 
plough the soil and rear live-stock for the profit of his 
masters. 


Car chevalier et clerc, sans faille, 
Vivent de ce qui travaille. 


For the knight and eke the clerk 
Live by him who does the work. 


Bad methods of cultivation, exactions, brigandage, and 
feudal warfare, natural disasters, murrains, floods, droughts, 
defective harvests—all seem to have conspired to make the 
life of the workers of the West more difficult. Since they did 
not know how to husband their reserves, and since each lived, 
as it were, isolated within his own lordship, famine was an 
almost endemic scourge. Like a sinister handmaid of death, 
it moved swiftly, ravaging as it went. In France between 
970 and 1100 there were no less than sixty famine years. In 
England the tradition is still preserved of the terrible dearths 
of 1086 and 1125. The whole of Western Europe experienced 
in turn this frightful scourge, which decimated the population 
of entire districts and brought in its train a revival of the 
practices of primitive bestiality. Privations and the lack 
of hygiene also multiplied epidemics of plague and leprosy. 
Yet such was the effect of family life and of the facilities for 
establishing families upon the soil, that the gaps were filled 
and, in spite of misery and want, the population rose, even 

146 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


to the point of disturbing the equilibrium between the pro- 
duction and consumption of means of subsistence. But this 
fertility created a new cause of distress in those countries 
wherein colonization did not open up the prospect of a better 
material existence for the wretched inhabitants. 

Worse still, perhaps, was the moral state of the rural 
classes. The state of mind of the majority was a gloomy 
passivity. Left to his own resources, the villein in his isola- 
tion found solace only in the bosom of his family, in the 
village community, and in his participation in the ceremonies 
and beliefs of a Christian life, which were brought within his 
reach in the thousands of parishes which had been created in 
the West. But in him, as in his masters, the old ancestral 
spirit still maintained itself, unquenched by education, with all 
its train of ignorance, superstition, brutality, cruelty, coarse- 
ness, and violence. The low and abject trickery of the mass 
of villeins and serfs was the melancholy heritage of centuries 
of oppression, to which the feudal régime had only added its 
own. No one sought to raise up these lower classes or to 
inculcate in their breasts the sentiment of human dignity. 
Aristocratic society, despising the villein, was not wise 
enough to improve him by treating him as a man. In spite 
of evangelical maxims about the equality of Christians before 
God, which are sometimes to be found in the sermons of 
preachers or in the writings of theologians, the propertied 
classes held that villeinage and serfdom were institutions 
consecrated by divine right, and placed the serf a degree 
lower than the beast of burden. In the eleventh century a 
French serf was worth 88 sous and a horse 100. The Church 
itself did no more than counsel the lord to use charity and 
the serf to show unlimited obedience and respect. But the 
seigniorial class was devoid of the spirit of kindness and 
justice, which might have won the peasants’ attachment. 
The lord had only hard treatment and contempt for the 
villein, by whose labour he lived. His pleasure, as a church- 
man of the age admits, was to trample, rail, and scoff at the 
peasant, and, ignorant of the spirit of equity and pity, he 
reigned by violence and terror. 

The propertied classes, unskilful organizers of labour as 
they were, had sown hatred all about them. They roused 
the spirit of revolt, which tacitly or openly threatened the 

147 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


powerful social and economic organization upon which the 
feudal system rested. As in the Carolingian period and for 
the same motives, now still more violent, the rural popula- 
tions of the tenth and eleventh centuries were not always 
content to suffer with resignation the hard conditions which 
had been imposed upon them. They tried by flight or by 
emigration to escape their too often intolerable existence. 
The severity of the regulations dealing with the right of 
recapture is a manifest proof of this. Sometimes the villeins 
departed to offer their labour as pioneers on uncultivated 
lands (hospites), to kinder or more sensible masters. Some- 
times, concealing their civil status, they managed to slip into 
some lordship, where they became permanently fixed after 
the lapse of a year and a day. Sometimes they joined the 
bands of pious pilgrims travelling to sacred shrines, and 
under this pretext sought a better fortune elsewhere. Some- 
times they went to swell the troops of vagabonds who 
thronged the roads, men without home or fealty, outlaws, 
who sought in the shelter of forests and mountain gorges a 
refuge for their freedom and their rapine. At other times 
they pondered in the shadows some sly revenge, and often 
enough years of ill-treatment and cruelty were avenged by 
isolated acts of violence, murders, ambushes, and poisonings. 
Advice to beware of the serf is a commonplace in literature 
designed for the upper classes. He is considered capable of 
anything. Sometimes excess of misery even drove him to 
open revolt; sudden outbursts occurred, like the slave wars 
of antiquity. These tumultuous jacqueries of hopeless men 
seem to have been provoked more especially by abuses of 
mainmorte, by restrictions upon rights of using commons, 
and by arbitrary payments exacted from villeins. The 
chroniclers of the age rarely consider it worth while to record 
them in their annals; they only note the most serious—those 
of Saxony, Frisia, and Holland, the revolts of 1095 in the 
Low Countries and France, and of 1008 in Brittany, and the 
risings in Normandy at the beginning of the eleventh century. 
The latter were immortalized a hundred years afterwards in 
the poem of Wace, who, by a literary fiction, has put into 
the mouth of the rebellious peasants a sort of rustic ‘* Marseil- 
laise,’’ so energetic is its tone and so bold its claims of 
equality. In reality these peasant revolts, accompanied by 
148 


a a, 7 Ce 


RURAL ORGANIZATION 


burning and massacre, let loose at hazard, without pro- 
gramme or bond of union, always ended in the same way— 
with a savage and pitiless repression by the upper classes, as 
soon as these had recovered from their surprise. Thus in par- 
ticular ended the Norman jacquerie at the hands of a sinister 
butcher, the great lord Raoul de Fougére. But force was 
powerless to stop this social fermentation, which was still 
going on at the beginning of the twelfth century, as the most 
perspicacious of contemporary observers bear witness. It 
was the forerunner of the great social and economic revolu- 
tion, which 200 years later was to transform the whole 
system of labour. 


149 


CHAPTER III 


PART PLAYED BY CHURCH AND STATE IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE 
REGIME OF PRODUCTION. 


THE primary condition necessary to stimulate the activity 
and progress of labour was the formation of some tutelary 
authority able to assure the necessary protection and order 
to the masses. 

For over two centuries feudal government showed itself 
powerless to realize this condition. A work of circumstance, 
which imminent dangers had brought to birth, it left too 
free a hand to the force and greed of thousands of little 
local sovereigns, who knew neither faith nor law. The 
feudal system had undoubtedly brought certain principles of 
progress into medieval society. In France, above all, 
from whence it spread all over the West, feudal civilization 
substituted for the ancient Greco-Roman conception of the 
omnipotent state, with its absolute power over individuals, 
the new idea of a political association founded upon liberty 
and upon the reciprocal obligations of men voluntarily 
bound together by contract. It favoured the revival of the 
sentiment of human dignity and individual energy, of 
voluntary devotion and discipline, of faith and loyalty be- 
tween suzerains and vassals. Under the influence of the 
Church the military institution of chivalry was transformed, 
and for an élite it became a moral and educative force which 
tended to put might at the service of right, to guarantee 
public peace, and to protect the labouring masses against 
violence and anarchy. In the upper ranks of society were 
born the chivalrous virtues of humanity and courtesy, which 
resulted from the softening of manners. But this trans- 
formation of feudal society had only a limited effect. It had 
little influence upon the condition of subject classes, and, in 
fact, liberty remained for the first two centuries of the 
feudal age limited to the nobility. The terms freeman 
(liber) and baron or knight (miles) remained for a long 
time synonymous. The sentiment of equality which reigned 
in feudal society, all the members of which, down to the 

150 


PART PLAYED BY CHURCH AND STATE 


humblest, looked upon each other as peers, never extended 
beyond the limits of the aristocratic class. The lower classes, 
the immense mass of the workers, were still despised, and 
the institution of chivalry itself barely modified the relations 
of lords and their villeins. 

Feudal government, indeed, never succeeded in fulfilling 
at all efficaciously the tutelary functions of a regular power, 
the permanent and enlightened protector of labour. Born 
out of the fear of the invasions and the need for protection 
against anarchy, it was for its subjects little more than a 
prolonged military dictatorship, with all the inconveniences 
of a despotism established upon brutal force. Instead of 
order it had only an ill-determined hierarchy, which merely 
gave rise to confusion, and the freedom of the feudal con- 
tract perpetuated this lack of discipline. Several hundreds 
of thousands of little local sovereigns, as turbulent as they 
were brutal, served by rapacious agents, who were both 
unscrupulous and ignorant, crushed the subject classes 
beneath an irritating tyranny, which was often no better 
than a kind of regular brigandage. A rough and incoherent 
fiscal system erected arbitrariness and extortion into a 
system. ‘* The lords,’’ declares a cleric of this period, 
**seek to fleece and to devour their subjects.’’ Justice 
itself fell into their hands, and became, not an institution 
guaranteeing social peace and equity, but an instrument of 
extortion, the essential object of which was to ewploit the 
person under jurisdiction—that is to say, to overwhelm him 
with fines and confiscations. The worst of it was that the 
villeins had no recourse against the abuses of this govern- 
ment, which were aggravated by the total absence of an 
organized police and by the multiplicity of feudal wars. 

In the absence of a real system of regular government, to 
take up arms was the sole resource left to feudatories, in 
order to secure respect for their power or their rights. Thus 
war was perpetual; it died down in one place, only to break 
out again in another. It was the usual accompaniment of 
spring and summer, and let loose upon thousands of little 
states all the horrors of devastation, fire, and murder. 
Cottages went up in flames, harvests were burned, cattle 
killed or driven away, vines and fruit-trees cut down or up- 
rooted, mills destroyed, and even churches profaned. When 

151 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the peasants were unable to take refuge in the heart of the 
woods they were seized, fleeced, tortured, mutilated, 
hanged. Sometimes their hands and feet were cut off, or 
they were flung upon the fire; captives had their eyes put 
out, women were violated and their breasts were hacked off. 
After exploits such as these whole provinces became deserts. 
Not infrequently famine followed in the train of prolonged 
feudal warfare to complete the work of destruction and 
death. It was essentially this chronic state of insecurity 
and robbery which for 200 years caused the stagnation of 
all cultivation and the poverty of the mass of the people. 
The feudal warrior, indeed, easily became a brigand, and 
war degenerated into an enterprise of pillage. ‘* Honour,”’’ 
says a troubadour at the beginning of the twelfth century, 
‘*is (for a gentleman) to steal and to plunder.”’ 

Thus as long as the feudal régime was all powerful, order, 
the elementary necessity of every society, was lacking to 
stimulate the progress of labour. Strangers to any idea of 
a real economic administration, the feudatories deprived 
labour of any possibility of improvement or of a lasting 
emancipation. It was only when great centralized feudal 
states were formed, side by side with reviving monarchies, 
that the Middle Ages began to move towards a happier 
future. From the eleventh century, in Normandy, Aquitaine, 
Anjou, and Flanders, then in the county of Barcelona and 
the marches of Brandenburg and Austria, there sprang from 
the feudal world itself governments, which took up once 
again, in concert with the monarchies of France, Germany, 
England, Navarre, Castile, Aragon, and the two Sicilies, the 
tradition of the supreme state, the dispenser of justice, the 
defender of order and public interest. Great politicians and 
administrators, such as William the Conqueror, Henry II 
Plantagenet, Philip Augustus, St. Louis, Henry II and | 
Henry III of Germany, Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick IT 
of Swabia, Roger II of Sicily, Alphonso VII and Jaime I of 
Spain once more established the framework of a strong civil 
and military administration and set to work to reduce the 
abusive power of the feudatories, and to substitute the 
interests of national groups for those of individuals or of 
local groups. Everywhere they sought first to re-establish 
order by decreeing what was called in some parts the Duke’s 

152 


PART PLAYED BY CHURCH AND STATE 


Peace, as in Normandy, in others the Count’s Peace, as in 
Flanders and Catalonia, and in others still the King’s Peace, 
as in France, Germany, Castile, or the two Sicilies. They 
made repeated efforts to limit and then to forbid feudal and 
private wars, and to prohibit the bearing of arms, trying to 
transform the anarchical and warlike society of their time 
into a peaceful and ordered one. Thus they laid the first 
foundations of a national economy, and, in the teeth of 
many obstacles, began to inaugurate a more far-reaching 
régime than that of the feudal economy, which never looked 
beyond local considerations. 

The princely or monarchical state had henceforth a more 
or less clear-cut economic policy, the object of which was to 
protect and favour labour in its various forms, and to 
encourage production and exchange. Great feudatories and 
kings were among the most ardent promoters of agricultural 
colonization. They often protected the rural masses against 
the abuses of seigniorial government, and even favoured the 
mitigation or suppression of serfdom, sometimes on their 
own domains, but, above all, outside them. Everywhere 
laws began to be put forth to protect agriculture, to prevent 
the seizure of cattle and farm implements, to encourage 
reclamations, or to prevent their abuse by forbidding the 
destruction of forests. Some rulers, such as the counts of 
Flanders, the dukes of Normandy, and the kings of the two 
Sicilies, set up model farms and studs, introduced new crops, 
or legislated, like the kings of Castile, for the development 
of stock-breeding and the prevention of murrains. They 
were the enlightened protectors of all manifestations of the 
industrial renaissance, of urban activity, and of the corpora- 
tions of artisans, and they promoted the exploitation of 
mines. Sometimes, as in the two Sicilies, they even antici- 
pated the economic system of modern monarchies by creat- 
ing veritable state manufactures. Their policy was wider in 
scope than that of the feudal governments, and they devoted 
all their efforts to promoting the development of circulation 
and exchange; merchants were granted not only security, 
but a whole host of exemptions and privileges, the interests 
of external trade were protected, and within their realms 
they created fairs and markets with special franchises, 
improved the means of communication both by sea and by 

153 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


land, and restricted the multiplicity of weights and measures, 
which they sometimes, as in England and France, even 
attempted to unify. They tried at the same time to 
develop credit, and to repress its abuse. They granted 
foreign bankers permission to set up banking-houses, and 
regulated the rate of interest and the exchanges. They 
restricted the circulation of feudal coinages, and promoted 
the movement in the direction of monetary unity by bringing 
about the prevalence of the royal coinage, and sometimes 
reserving the right to mint it for themselves. For the first 
time in centuries England, the two Sicilies, Flanders, 
Hainault, France (in the time of St. Louis) knew a fixed 
and pure coinage. But more often yet they proved to be 
still unable to shake off the practices of the feudal govern- 
ments, and destroyed the effect of their more enlightened 
economic policy by a fiscal policy which bristled with abuses 
and was a mass of hampering restrictions and incoherent 
customs regulations. The national economy of which they 
were the representatives was painfully seeking its way in the 
chaos of feudalism, from which it had not yet completely 
emerged. 

In the foreground at this period we must place the action 
of the Church, which was superior in continuity, power, and 
scope to that of the secular governments. With the whole of 
Western Christendom under its eyes, the Church inaugurated 
therein the first international economy, and sought to give to 
labour a system of protective regulations designed to increase 
its efficacy. The Papacy and the French monastic orders 
took the lead in this work of reconstruction. Under the 
inspiration of the religious idealism professed by the monks, 
the great medieval popes from Gregory VII to Innocent II 
succeeded in partially freeing the Church from the feudal 
bonds which threatened to stifle it, and set its feet boldly 
in the path of progress. In concert with the Cluniacs and 
Cistercians they restored the idea of authority, the concep- 
tion of the solidarity of interests of Western Christendom, 
and tried to establish order and public peace in feudal 
Europe. The Church assisted monarchical government to 
re-establish itself, playing a tutelary rdle towards it which 
was useful at the time. Its doctors revived the Christian and 
Roman tradition of the state as protector of the community 

154 


PART PLAYED BY CHURCH AND STATE 


of labour and defender of collective interests. It propagated 
the common basis of Christian civilization throughout the 
West, proclaimed the necessity and dignity of labour, and 
was the sole society open to the lower classes, wherein the 
son of the villein or artisan could rise to the bishop’s mitre, 
nay, even to the papal tiara, as did the erstwhile swineherd 
Nicholas Breakspear (Adrian IV). Strong in its spiritual 
and temporal power, recruited by dint of its elective system 
from the élite, furnished with a centralizing government 
served by the ever-increasing monastic militia, the Church 
in this period of the Middle Ages can justly claim the honour 
of having taken the lead in social and economic progress 
and in material civilization, as it led in intellectual and 
moral civilization. 

Popes and councils, monks and clerks, sought to regulate 
feudalism, to soften its manners, and to raise its ideal by 
the institution of chivalry. They tried to reform the abuses 
of feudal government and to prevent the exploitation of its 
subjects. In 1179 the Lateran Council was bold enough to 
condemn arbitrary tallages, and in the thirteenth century 
the Franciscans are found encouraging the movement 
against the payment of seigniorial dues, and supporting 
the emancipation of peasants and burgesses. Themselves 
victims of feudal brutality, clerks and monks often made 
common cause with the people against the feudatories. The 
ideal of the Church was a well-ordered society, in which 
work should be able to go on in security, and of this society 
it constituted itself the guardian. Likewise from the eleventh 
century onwards it began a missionary campaign, in part 
fruitless, and yet a true source for pride, to limit, regulate, 
and even to suppress war. With the support of popes and 
princes, the French Church, promoter of so many generous 
ideas, spread the Peace and the Truce of God throughout 
the West. By virtue of these two institutions, feudal expedi- 
tions were entirely forbidden for part of the year—Advent, 
Lent, religious festivals, and were prohibited every week 
from Wednesday to Monday morning. Non-combatants, 
clerks, merchants, peasants, and their goods were placed 
under the safeguard of religion so as to protect them from 
the brutality and devastation of the soldiery. Armed 
associations (paiwades, ‘‘ fraternities of peace ’’ or ‘* fraterni- 

155 


LIFE ‘AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ties of the cowl’’) were founded under oath to maintain 
these salutary regulations. Ecclesiastical censure, the with- 
holding of the sacrament, and excommunication fell upon 
those who disturbed public order or work. The Church 
lacked the power to bring an effective force to bear in 
support of its generous conceptions, but it had at least the 
merit of showing the way to the monarchical state, which 
was later to carry out the great social work thus planned 
by churchmen. 

At the same time the Church gave to the masses the 
powerful, moral, and idealistic armour of its Faith. It 
multiplied schools and universities for the people as well as 
for the chosen few, and spread abroad the teaching of which 
it had the monopoly. It was the Church which founded 
higher education, and in the professorial chairs of its doctors 
political economy was born and problems were discussed re- 
lating to the organization of labour, the origin and limits of 
property, individual or communal ownership, wages and the 
just price, the rdle of commerce and of money. All these 
high questions were there studied with the utmost boldness, 
and the audacity of speculative thought on this point knew 
no bounds among theologians and canonists, though practical 
reason tempered the boldness of theoretical reason, as the 
mendicant orders found at the end of the thirteenth century, 
when they were minded to take up communism and an 
anarchical equalitarianism. 

In the social order the Church had been at pains to 
organize the relief of the labouring classes, the poor, the 
sick, and the captive, multiplying, with the help of the laity, 
alms-houses, hospitals, maisons Dieu, lazar-houses, and 
organizations for the ransoming of prisoners. Charity, a 
Christian form of social solidarity, was made a formal obliga- 
tion, and a corrective of the right of property. In the 
economic sphere the Church then played a part of the first 
importance, for it united organizing ability with the breadth 
of mind and idealism of the most talented body of men to 
be found anywhere in that age. Its domains became centres 
of attraction, by reason of the superiority of the agricultural 
methods employed there and the favourable condition of the 
peasantry. It was ‘‘ good to live beneath the cross,” pro- 
vided that one gave up all spirit of independence. It was in 

156 


PART PLAYED BY CHURCH AND STATE 


the Church that there appeared the first signs of pity for 
the working classes; theologians and preachers, Yves de 
Chartres, Geoffrey de Troyes, Raoul Ardent, Maurice de 
Sully and their like, proclaimed the social value of the work 
of the poor and humble and the original equality of serf and 
freeman before God and His sacraments, even while they 
preached obedience to the villeins. They castigated the 
oppressors of the poor, and some even raised a voice against 
the institution of serfdom. 

The clergy, a tradition-loving class and conservers of 
the feudal order, showed scant favour to the political and 
social emancipation of the peasants, but they set an example 
in the amelioration of their lot in the economic sphere. They 
showed immense activity in pushing on the agricultural 
colonization of the West, in which the great French 
monasteries were the leaders, and deserve the eternal 
homage of history. The ecclesiastical domains were centres 
in which agricultural science was developed, forestry and 
scientific breeding improved, model farms created, new crops 
tried, and agricultural production regenerated and stimu- 
lated. It was on the lands of the Church, and in towns in 
which episcopal authority ruled, that there appeared the 
professional division of labour, the first perfected industrial 
technique, the first schools of arts and crafts; and there, too, 
the working classes first organized themselves. Above all, 
the monasteries, during this period of three centuries, taught 
to one generation after another the various higher forms of 
industry, the production of luxury fabrics, tapestry, 
embroidery, enamel work, goldsmith’s work, porcelain, 
glasswork, architecture, sculpture, painting. From _ the 
schools of Moissac, Saint-Savin, Saint-Denis, Fossanova, 
Chiaravalle, Saint-Gall, and many another abbey there went 
forth craftsmen who taught the men of their day the skilled 
practice of industrial arts. Finally, the Church began early 
to assist the development of a new form of wealth based 
upon movables. It favoured the formation of groups of 
merchants round the centres of its dominion, both urban 
and rural; it sought to secure the safety and to provide the 
means of transport, organizing under its egis the first 
associations for the repair of roads and bridges and creating 
the first long distance transport services by road or river; 

157 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


it stimulated the creation of markets and fairs; and it tried 
to repress or abolish barbarous customs, such as piracy and 
wreckage, which hindered maritime commerce. Although 
the Church tended to consider mercantile activity as sterile 
and the trade in money as usurious, it was nevertheless the 
first to create reserves of capital, to inaugurate the system 
of deposits, credit, and banking, to proclaim the wise doctrine 
of a stable coinage, and to take part in large commercial 
enterprises. In short, by establishing between the states of 
Western Christendom the bonds of a true international 
solidarity, the Church prepared the way for the renaissance 
and development of a money economy which was destined 
to give to labour an expansion and a freedom hitherto un- 
known to it. 


158 


CHAPTER IV 


THE APPEARANCE OF A MONEY ECONOMY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
WESTERN COMMERCE FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE TENTH TO THE 
MIDDLE OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY- 


EVER since the brief economic renaissance of the Carolingian 
age had proved abortive, the predominance of natural or 
domanial economy had grown steadily firmer. During the 
first two centuries of the feudal age, a movable or money 
economy, which has its source in commerce, possessed only 
an infinitesimal importance. The rdle of money was very 
small, and it was the land and its produce which constituted 
wealth. Economic life had become, as it were, stationary in 
this purely agricultural society, enclosed in the rigid frame- 
work of the landed aristocracy. Feudal government was 
designed rather to hamper than to assist commercial activity. 
Moreover, the public opinion of all classes misunderstood the 
role of trade, and continued to look upon the trader as a 
parasite, a speculator, a usurer, and movable wealth as the 
fruit of fraud and rapine, but not of labour. Moreover, the 
conditions of economy on the great domain left only a limited 
field of action to commerce. Each group produced almost 
_ everything necessary for life, and trade took place only in a 
small number of natural or manufactured commodities, which 
arose from an excess of production, and were exchanged on 
the spot, usually for ready money, and often by the primitive 
method of barter. A man would trade a horse for a sack of 
corn, a piece of cloth for a measure of salt,.a pound of pepper 
for a pair of boots. The only markets known were local, held 
in the gateway of a castle or monastery, or on the outskirts 
of a neighbouring town. Insecurity, anarchy, the multi- 
plicity of seigniorial monopolies and tolls, the scarcity and 
difficulty of means of transport, the chaotic diversity of 
weights and measures and moneys, the scarcity of the 
currency, and the imperfection of instruments of credit were 
all obstacles to the circulation of merchandise. 

The consumption of foreign goods was so feeble and the 
means of purchasing them so inadequate that, with the 
exception of certain regions, such as Italy, Southern and 

159 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Northern France, Flanders, the Rhineland, and a few of the 
Danube lands, there did not yet exist in the West a special 
class of native merchants (mercatores)—that is to say, of 
middlemen between the producer and the consumer. This 
class was, to begin with, composed almost exclusively of 
adventurers and strangers, even of non-Christians, Jews who 
existed on the edge of feudal society, and traded more 
especially in articles of luxury and the precious metals, or 
practised moneylending, in order to satisfy the needs of the 
aristocracy. They were not, as a rule, sedentary ; they took 
the road as what we should call pedlars, on a large scale, or 
travelled in caravans from country to country to the fairs, 
which the lords organized during the fine weather on the 
occasion of some religious festival. But in spite of the 
privileges which were granted to these commercial assizes, 
the merchant, like all strangers, was treated as an intruder, 
a ‘‘foreigner.’’ His goods, his ships, his person, were exposed 
to seizure and confiscation by virtue of rights of escheat, 
waif, or wreck. Upon him by virtue of the right of reprisal 
fell the revenges and retaliations which the feudal lord con- 
sidered it his right to exact from the enemy lord to whom 
the merchant was subject. Neither by sea nor by land was 
there any security for a profession, whose members were 
of necessity true adventure hunters, whom only the love of 
gain emboldened to persevere in their dangerous career. 
Commerce was rescued from this hostile atmosphere at 
the end of the eleventh century by a combination of favour- 
able circumstances. A great movement of expansion, roused 
by the Church to defend Christendom against the Moslems 
and to spread the Christian faith among the pagans, snatched 
the West for two and a half centuries from its primitive 
isolation. In the north and east of Europe there were now 
opened to trade the new provinces of this universal Christian 
Empire, the organization of which was being carried out by 
the Papacy, Scandinavia, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and 
the Baltic lands. In the south and south-east Christian 
states sprang up in the Moslem lands, in Spain, Portugal, 
Sicily, and Syria, and commerce followed the arms of the 
Crusaders. Great pilgrimages in France, Spain, Italy, and 
the East carried along a crowd of the faithful, and the 
merchants went with them. Not only were new fields of 
160 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


activity opened in the Western lands on the shores of the 
northern seas, but the Mediterranean once more became the 
great trade route between the new lands of Western Europe 
and the old countries, the homes of wealth and civilization, 
which lay within Arab and Byzantine Empires. The 
feudal world, with the ardent sap of youth afire in its veins, 
sprang forward from all sides to seek new settlements, where 
all—nobles, clerks, peasants, and merchants—hoped to make 
their fortunes. The development of trade now received a 
great stimulus, for everything was in its favour, the protec- 
tion of feudal and monarchical states, interested in increasing 
their resources, the formation of urban republics, the pros- 
perity of which was bound up with the progress of trade, 
the development of agricultural and industrial production, 
which furnished it with increasing elements of activity, the 
creation of new markets and great fairs, even the trans- 
formation of social life, which gave rise to the need for new 
comforts or luxuries. Commercial life blossomed into an 
activity hitherto unknown, surpassing even that of the best 
periods of antiquity, when trade had a much narrower field 
of action. 

The new economy now had its special organs. It brought 
to birth distinct classes and varied forms of organization. 
Above the small peasant producer and the local artisan, who 
continued to sell directly to the consumer, there appeared 
the professional trader (negotiator, mercator), the middle- 
man, whose essential function was the purchase and resale 
of commodities. Originally, great merchants and transport 
organizers were merged in this class with pedlars and small 
retailers. It was formed of diverse and often of disturbed 
elements, traders dwelling by preference on the outskirts of 
towns, and at crossways, where roads or rivers met, where a 
special right, the jus mercatorum, protected them. Before 
long they were reinforced by the capitalists and money- 
dealers of the towns. 

Distinctions began to appear in this class born of in- 
equality of wealth or division of labour. The majority of 
the merchants became settled. A small urban commerce 
developed and became distinct from the great national or 
international commerce, which was reserved for an élite, and 
from the pedlar’s traffic, exercised by nomads. This urban 

161 M 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


commerce centred in the town, the banlieue and the 
district, and its home was the daily or weekly market. 
There the merchant offered for sale, either in the open 
square or closed market-hall, or more often still in his shop 
or stall, those local commodities which were necessary for 
the elementary requirements of existence, and sometimes 
also imported goods, especially corn, wine, fish, cattle and 
meat, wood, wool, flax, wax, as well as goods prepared or 
manufactured on the spot. Thus the various forms of local 
commerce appeared and developed with rapidity, especially 
the food and clothing trades, which grew up side by side 
with crafts, in which direct sale was practised, concurrently 
with sale through middlemen. Above the sedentary traders, 
who carried on retail commerce, was a minority of notables 
and rich merchants (meliores, divites), who monopolized 
wholesale commerce. These two classes only just tolerated 
the wandering traders, pedlars, and *‘ foreigners,’’ and the 
** regraters ’’ or retailers, submitting them to strict regula- 
tion. But urban commerce, limited as it was in range, 
disposing of only small resources and moderate supplies, 
and bound by rigid regulations, did not lend itself to opera- 
tions on a large scale. 

It was for this reason that the great merchants—the 
spicers, mercers, skinners, transport organizers, shipowners, 
and bankers—organized a new kind of trade with a wider 
scope, to wit, national and international commerce. This 
class specialized in the traffic in articles of luxury, spices, 
fine fabrics, furs, and raw materials necessary to manufac- 
tures, as well as in operations of credit and in the manage- 
ment of business which required the employment of a good 
deal of capital, but, at the same time, brought in large 
profits. Thus the merchants who engaged in this commerce 
often pooled their resources and shared risks and profits. 
Christians began more and more to take the place of Jews 
in this large scale traffic, in which the Italians quickly took 
the lead. They organized commercial societies on lines of 
limited liability, in which capitalists, merchants, and their 
agents were all associated. From the middle of the twelfth 
to the middle of the thirteenth centuries they served as inter- 
mediaries between the peoples of the Christian West and 
those of the East. Enterprising, ingenious, sharp, and some- 

162 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


what unscrupulous, these Lombards, Genoese, Lucchese, 
Siennese, and Florentines dispatched their caravans of 
merchants to the fairs, multiplied commercial houses and 
depots, and exercised a kind of commercial monarchy over 
Central Italy, France, Spain, England, and the South of 
Germany. . There were sixteen Italian houses in Paris in 
1292. Flourishing merchant colonies of the same nationality 
were to be found in Naples, Barletta, Nimes, Montpellier, 
London, and many other towns. For 200 years the Italian 
merchant—the Lombard, as he was called—was the real 
master of international commerce. 

Soon the Catalans, the Provengals, and the merchants of 
Languedoc organized themselves in their turn to share in this 
trade, while on their side the traders of Northern France, 
from the district round Paris, Normandy, and Picardy, and 
those of Flanders and the Rhineland were, from the end of the 
eleventh century, associated in gilds, or societies for mutual 
defence and protection similar to the gild of Saint-Omer 
(1072-1083). They soon began to form themselves into 
federations called Hanses, which became extremely powerful 
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Such was the Hanse 
which comprised seventeen towns, and finally rose to sixty 
cities of Champagne, Picardy, Hainault, Flanders, France, 
Normandy, and Brabant, the object of which was to facili- 
tate business at the fairs of Champagne. Such likewise was 
the Hanse of London, with its capital at Bruges, which 
included seventeen towns, among which were Ypres and 
Lille, with the object of regulating trade, more especially 
the wool trade, with the British Isles. It was on this model, 
too, that the famous German Hanseatic League was created 
to monopolize traffic between the northern countries and the 
West, while in England there arose the Company of 
Merchants of the Staple (1267), which contained English 
merchants exporting the butter, cheese, salt meat, wool, and 
metals with which England supplied the markets or staples 
at Calais, Bruges, Antwerp, and Dordrecht. 

Meritorious efforts were made under the impulse of the 
great feudatories, and particularly of the town governments, 
the merchant companies, the Church, and the central govern- 
ments, to re-establish roads and rivers, and the means of 
transport. In France there appeared the first royal high- 

163 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ways, and in the two Sicilies, Germany, and the Low 
Countries military or national roads (heerstraten) were 
made. The Church organized pious fraternities of bridge- 
builders, the Pontiff Brothers or Fréres Pontifs, the most 
famous of which was founded by a French shepherd of 
Vivarais, Saint Benézet, who had imitators in Italy. A 
useful spirit of emulation multiplied wooden and stone 
bridges during three centuries, and the bridges of Avignon, 
of Pont Saint-Esprit, of Lyons, Paris, Tours, London, Strat- 
ford, Florence, and Valencia in Spain belong to this period. 
War was waged upon brigands, and an attempt was made 
to thin out the complicated forest of tolls. The great con- 
tinental highways between Italy, France, and Central 
Europe, by Geneva, Mont Cenis, the Saint-Bernard, the Saint- 
Gothard, the Spligen, and the Brenner Passes were covered 
with caravans of merchants, as were those of the Rhone, 
Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, Seine, Loire, and Garonne Valleys 
leading to the West of Europe, or the passes of the Western 
Pyrenees by Roncevaux and of the Eastern Pyrenees by 
Cerdagne, which led to Spain. River transport developed 
even more widely than land transport, because of its greater 
speed and the freight capacity of the boats, which was 500 
times greater than that of the sumpter beasts employed on 
the roads. Navigable rivers were improved by the construc- 
tion of dams, inclined planes, and sea-gates, in default of 
chambered locks, which were not yet known. By means of 
boats of small gauge and very varied type, numerous trans- 
port companies, Hanses, like those of the Water Merchants 
of Paris, the Lower Seine, or Rouen, which were united in 
1815, carried all sorts of produce and of merchandise. From 
the Guadalquiver, the Ebro, and the Po to the rivers of 
North Germany, the whole network of Western rivers 
became, especially from the twelfth century, the scene of a 
prodigious activity. ‘*Staple’’ towns, river ports, such as 
Cremona, Arles, Niort, Douai, Malines, Duisburg, Cologne, 
Frankfort, Regensburg, developed, thanks to all this active 
navigation. The first more or less regular services of 
passenger carriages, couriers, and goods waggons were 
organized by the care of ecclesiastical or urban trading 
corporations, or even of states. A postal service appeared 
in Italy in the twelfth century, and in Germany towards 
3 164 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


1237. Inns and refuges, like those founded by St. Bernard 
of Mentone in the Alps, sprang up in mountain passes. 
Journeys became increasingly easier and swifter. Hence- 
forth transport waggons could carry heavy goods from Paris 
to Genoa in thirty-five days. The couriers of the banks 
covered the distance between Florence and Naples in five or 
six days, and the convoys of merchants took ten or twelve. 

Commerce found a means of expansion hitherto unknown 
in the increased amount of money coined and circulated, as 
well as in the new organization of credit. It was thus that 
a money economy developed at the expense of the barbarous 
economy of barter and exchange in kind. It was born in 
Italy and the Netherlands, and spread to the other Western 
countries. The supply of metals gradually increased by 
means of relations with the East and by the working of 
mines of precious metals. Some enlightened governments, 
those of the merchant republics of Italy, of the kingdoms of 
the two Sicilies and England, of the county of Flanders, and, 
for a moment, that of France in the time of St. Louis, 
inaugurated the wise policy of a stable coinage, so faveur- 
able to the development of commerce and in striking 
contrast with the fatal habit of altering and varying the 
currency which persisted in most states. The Norman kings 
of Southern Italy and the merchant republics of Florence 
and Venice, who were taught by the experience of Byzan- 
tium, and the counts of Flanders, the kings of England, 
France, and Castile, and the Hohenstaufen in Germany, who 
learned from Italy, all struck either gold coins—taris, sequins, 
ducats, sous, marabotins, maravedis—or silver coins—denters, 
dinars, tournois, parisis—of invariable value and fixed ratios 
and proportions of alloy. The gold coins, in particular, to 
which must be added the Byzantine bezants, greatly 
assisted the progress of international commerce by furnish- 
ing the West with a method of payment, hitherto almost 
unknown. a 

Up to the eleventh century credit had existed in 
primitive forms, which were only suited to a system of 
natural economy, in which there was neither active produc- 
tion for the market nor a widespread trade. Nothing was 
then known but loans for use or consumption, made in order 
to meet the elementary needs of existence—that is to say, 

165 


~~. 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


loans in kind, and loans on the security of a pledge. The 
Church held that to stipulate for any interest for this kind 
of credit was usury. But the necessities of commerce and 
industry led to the development of loans for production, in 
which the capital advanced served the borrowers for the 
increase of their business and their profits. Henceforward 
it became difficult to maintain the rigidity of the old rules. 
They were eluded in all sorts of ways, the requirement of 
interest being concealed in the contracts by describing the 
capital as larger than it really was, or by all sorts of com- 
_ pensatory payments, notably for any delay in repayment. 

The Canonists themselves, while continuing to prohibit 
as usurious all interest upon loans for consumption or for 
use, which it was becoming difficult to distinguish from other 
varieties, recognized, with St. Bonaventura and Innocent IV, 
the legitimacy of payment for capital invested in commercial 
and industrial enterprises, when risks were run (damnum 
emergens), or when the lender was temporarily deprived of 
the use of his capital (lucrum cessans). In the thirteenth 
century we find popes taking the Italian bankers under their 
protection, placing them under the safeguard of the 
ecclesiastical courts, and forcing their debtors to repay loans 
by the threat of spiritual censure, while continuing at the 
same time to hunt down usurers. The time was at hand 
when the lay jurists of the fourteenth century were to 
proclaim with Baldus the legitimacy of contracts, and later 
of all loans at interest. 

Meanwhile, in order to avoid the thunders of the Church 
or the slow procedure of ecclesiastical courts, credit was 
taking on new forms, better adapted to the necessities of 
commerce, such as sales with power of redemption or with 
guarantees, advances on life annuities or redeemable securi- 
ties, loans on mortgages, and, above all, loans on a limited 
partnership basis, on security of specie or against a bank 
deposit, and loans on bottomry, the last being used in the 
great enterprises of sea commerce. From the thirteenth 
century interest in the leading commercial countries, such 
as Italy and South Germany, fell as low as 10, 12, and 17 
per cent. for commercial undertakings, while in others, such 
as England and sometimes even France, it rose to 15, 20, 25, 
43, 50, and as high as 80 per cent. 

166 


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GENOESE BANKERS 
(Late 14th Century) 


face p. 166 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


The circulation of paper, or fiduciary currency, practised 
by the Byzantines and Arabs, was introduced into the West 
by means of the Italians, the merchants of the South of 
France, the Catalans, and the Flemings, in the form of 
letters of credit and of payment, forerunners of the modern 
draft notes, or, again, of bills of exchange and “ fair bills,”’ 
which avoided cash payments. The system of payments by 
clearance and by offset of debts, with power of postpone- 
ment, subject to commission, was introduced at the great 
fairs. By these means a far more extensive trade could be 
carried on. 

Exchange and banking became the appanages of a special 
class of exchangers and bankers. The former, charged with 
arbitrating between the countless moneys of the day, found 
their roéle diminishing as fiduciary circulation increased. The 
latter, on the other hand, grew in importance. Leaving the 
Jews to meet the demands of the common people and to 
carry on most of the business of making loans on the security 
of pledges, which, on account of the risks involved, necessi- 
tated rates of interest (sometimes as high as 80 per cent.) 
which were considered usurious, and which roused the hatred 
of the people and the cupidity of princes against the lenders, 
the Christian moneylenders organized themselves everywhere 
in order to inaugurate new forms of credit. While the Jewish 
rank and file suffered expulsion, confiscation, and massacre, 
the Christian aristocracy of banking prospered in abbeys, in 
thousands of houses of Templars, and, above all, in 
the innumerable counting-houses of the Lombards and 
Caorsini. 

The Order of Templars, which had relations throughout 
East and West, was inaugurating great operations of inter- 
national capital at the same time as the Italian merchants ; 
but they rivalled and surpassed it, and in 1307 took over 
the greater part of its business. The trading cities of Italy, 
which, from the twelfth century onwards, became the active 
middlemen between Levantine and Western trade, organized 
themselves with the object of putting all the diverse forms 
of credit at the service of commerce. Everywhere in the 
centre and north of the peninsula, at Venice, Cremona, 
Bologna, Piacenza, Parma, Asti, Chiari, Genoa, Lucca, 
Siena, Pistoja, Rome, Pisa, Florence, companies of merchant 

167 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


bankers multiplied. Originally composed of members of the 
same families, or of citizens of the same town, they soon 
began to form unions and cartels to compete with each other 
for markets or to dominate them. They had at their disposal 
the powerful capital made available by association, together 
with a strong and flexible organization, and they spread 
a network of agencies from Syria and Cyprus to North Africa 
and Western Europe. For nearly 800 years Christendom 
was obliged to reckon with the power of these capitalists, 
Lombards, Tuscans, or Caorsini; for without the Riccardi, 
the Bardi, the Peruzzi, the Scali and their like, large scale 
operations had become impossible. From the middle of the 
thirteenth century the Florentines held the first place among 
them, with eighty great banking firms, which threw those of 
Siena and Lucca into the shade. 

Swarming in the Levant as well as in the West, they 
displayed an economic activity as incessant as it was varied ; 
they maintained branches in Acre and Famagusta, in 
Southern Italy, and in France, in which country they entirely 
dominated both the Champagne fairs and Paris, where they 
had sixteen houses; they were masters both of the Flemish 
market at Bruges and of the English market at London, and 
penetrated into Central and Northern Europe as well. They 
carried on both wholesale commerce on their own account 
and a carrying trade, and dealt alike in commodities of 
general consumption and in luxuries. They bought and re- 
sold corn, wine, oil, spices, sugar, raw materials, such as 
timber, wool, silk, cotton, flax, hemp, metals, dyes, and 
medicinal drugs, manufactured goods, such as woollens, silks, 
cottons, linens, worked metals and leather, glass articles, 
objets d’art, and jewels. They organized transport both by 
land and sea. They practised territorial and maritime 
insurance. They led or organized great industrial and 
commercial enterprises. They undertook the collection of 
bills of exchange and the liquidation of debts. They opened 
current accounts and regulated mercantile business by means 
of transfer or clearance. They issued and accepted bills of 
exchange. Together with the Templars they were the first 
to create banks of deposit and of discount, and to organize 
public and private credit. They received precious objects 
and money on deposit and return on demand, and issued 

168 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


receipts. They not only practised loans against bills of 
lading, but also against mortgages and on goods at rates 
varying from 4 per cent. to 175 per cent. Their clientéle 
comprised all the rich or comfortably-off classes and the 
corporations. Among their debtors were municipal republics, 
such as Florence and Genoa, communes, such as Rouen, 
bishops, and abbots. In the thirteenth century the Arch- 
bishop of Cologne owed more than £40,000 to Italian 
bankers, and the French and English bishops owed them 
hundreds of pounds. The greatest of lords of the day, 
counts of Flanders and Champagne, dukes of Burgundy, 
borrowed from them what were huge sums for that time; 
the popes, the emperors, the kings of Naples, France, and 
England were in debt to them. They advanced Charles IV 
of France almost two million frances in a single year; they 
lent over £240,000 to Edward I and over £400,000 to 
Edward III, and in 1340 the latter, who then owed them 
nearly £1,400,000, ‘‘the value of a kingdom,’ could 
only escape from his position by declaring himself 
bankrupt. 
Protected by the Papacy and strong in their position as 
Christians, and in their powerful organization, these bankers 
extracted privileges and exemptions from princes, and, what 
was more, made the growing power of money felt in political 
life. They offered to popes and kings all the resources of 
their organization in framing fiscal systems, and furnished 
them with administrators and financial agents. Subtle, 
adroit, and quite unscrupulous, they made their services 
appreciated in diplomacy. Their wealth ensured them an 
eminent, indeed, a preponderating position in social life, 
especially in the Italian communes and in the upper ranks 
of European society. Into it they introduced large-handed 
and sumptuous habits of life and the taste for art and 
science, while at the same time displaying to the common 
people all the arrogance of the nouveau riche. In fine they 
initiated the middle classes of the West into the science of 
commerce and credit, and boldly threw open new paths for 
trade, and an enormous field of expansion for economic 
activity. Hated by the people whom, according to a French 
saying, they ‘‘ fleeced and flayed,’? turn by turn hunted, 
despoiled, and exploited by princes, they nevertheless took 
169 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


their place among the indispensable elements of the new 
society. 

Commercial activity was not only exercised in the daily 
and weekly markets of the town and country districts, which 
increased every year in number, and where the exchange of 
local produce was carried on in market-squares and market- 
halls, which were everywhere being built; it was also carried 
on in the fairs, the great activity of which is a characteristic 
feature of this period of the Middle Ages. Towards these 
fairs the long caravans of merchants of every nation wound 
their way, armed with spear and shield, their heavy waggons 
escorted by men-at-arms. They brought such wealth to the 
rulers of the state that the latter hastened to bestow upon 
them special protection, safeguards, and privileges, such as 
complete freedom to trade and exemption from the most 
onerous dues. The Church blessed them, extended her pro- 
tection to them, and opened them with religious ceremonies. 
A special justice, similar to that which attached to the 
celebrated fairs of Champagne, was dispensed by Chancellors 
and Keepers, for the maintenance of good order and equit- 
able transactions. Merchants were assisted to attend them 
by the grant of safe-conducts, guaranteed by treaties. There 
they enjoyed the privilege of sanctuary, and were sheltered 
from rights of escheat and reprisals, and out of reach of all 
prosecutions. A tariff of charges for food and lodgings was 
laid down in their favour. The commerce of all the lands 
of Kast and West met at the most famous of these gather- 
ings. Each country sought to organize its own fairs— 
England at Stourbridge ; Germany at Aix-la-Chapelle, Frank- 
fort, and Constance; the Low Countries at Lille, Messines, 
Ypres, and Bruges; Castile at Seville and Medina del Campo ; 
Italy at Bari, Lucca, and Venice. 

But they prospered, above all, in France at the crossroads 
between the great regions of the West, notably at Nimes, 
Beaucaire, and Bordeaux, Chalon-sur-Sdone, Caen, Rouen, 
Corbie, and Amiens. Two great French centres were 
universally famous in this respect, the Ile-de-France and 
Champagne. Every year from the 11th to the 24th of June 
(Lendit), merchants flocked to the plain of Saint-Denis. 
They came in still greater numbers to the great fairs of 
Champagne, which followed one another annually from 

170 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


January to October, each lasting from sixteen to fifty days, 
at Lagny, Bar-sur-Aube, and, above all, at Provins and 
Troyes. 

The Champagne fairs were of capital importance from the 
second half of the twelfth to the first half of the fourteenth 
century. In these plains of the Upper Seine and the Marne, 
at the meeting-place of the great European routes which 
united the Mediterranean countries to the lands bordering 
the Channel and the North Sea, or watered by the Rhine 
and the Rhone, these commercial gatherings attracted the 
wholesale merchants and small travelling traders of all the 
Kuropean nations from the Levantines, Italians, and 
Spaniards to the Flemings, Germans, English, and Scots, 
to say nothing of the French themselves. Armed with 
precious privileges, placed under the special protection of 
the Church and of the counts of Champagne, they guaranteed 
safe journeys and transactions to commerce. Guides and 
escorts were supplied to caravans; spiritual penalties, a sort 
of commercial interdict, were declared against all who 
hindered the movements of travellers on their way thither. 
An official organization, under the direction of a Chancellor 
or garde des foires, assisted by sheriffs, notaries, brokers, 
measurers, criers, porters, and sergeants, secured the 
maintenance of privileges and good order. Fairs were 
the sanctuaries of international trade, entrepdts where 
merchandise benefited by reduced tariffs and where business 
of all kinds was carried on in full and entire freedom. 
The merchants of every nation and even of every religion 
were there out of reach of abusive rights of escheat and 
reprisals, of execution for debts or bodily coercion. There 
they could freely carry on all sorts of traffic, even the traffic 
in money. The seal of the garde des foires guaranteed the 
authenticity of their contracts, which notaries drew up ~ 
under the authority of the Chancellor. A special jurisdic- 
tion, both prompt and swift, was adapted to their needs. 

To the towns of Champagne, therefore, came caravans of 
merchants, among whom Italians and Flemings were pre- 
dominant, grouped under the authority of their consuls or 
captains; they found there immense cellars, several stories 
high, true subterranean cities, and galleries with massy 
pillars similar to the souks or bazars of the East, to receive 

171 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the merchandise, piled up in enormous heaps. Unpacking 
went on for eight days after the opening of the fair. Then 
the sales began, regulated according to a fixed order, known 
as divisions. For the first period of twelve days woven stuffs 
of all sorts, woollens, silks, muslins, cottons, carpets, cloths 
from East and West, were sold or exchanged. Then the 
sergeants declared the cloth fair closed with cries of **‘ Hare! 
Hare!’’ (pack.up). Then the fair of leathers or cordovans, 
_ skins and furs, opened for eight days and closed in the same 
way. During these two periods innumerable transactions 
were being carried on over horses, cattle, wines, corn, 
herrings, salt, tallow, lard, and all kinds of merchandise 
which were sold by weight (avoir du poids), as well as raw 
materials, wool, flax, hemp, raw silk, and, above all, dye 
stuffs, medicinal drugs, spices, and sugar. An enormous 
elientéle, composed of wholesale as well as retail merchants, 
pedlars, and individuals, from feudal lords and burgesses 
down to peasants, came to lay in supplies at the fairs. 

It was the most original feature of these great gatherings 
that men could practise openly there not only the great 
international trade in merchandise, but the trade in money 
itself. Operations of credit could be carried out there in full 
freedom. Indeed, on the twentieth day there began the fair 
of the money-changers and bankers. For four weeks they 
set out their counters or tables, their money-bags, and their 
balances, in order to weigh and exchange ingots and coins, 
and for fifteen days more they proceeded to the liquidation 
of debts and the auditing of accounts from the opening of 
the fair. Special couriers (coureurs de hare) were engaged in 
carrying the instructions of commercial and banking-houses, 
rates of exchanges and currency, orders of payment and 
drafts. In the last period appeared the ‘‘ couriers of pay- 
ment,’? who made known to the representatives of the banks 
the amount to be collected or paid out. Quantities of loans 
were arranged during these days, when loans were authorized 
and negotiated at rates varying from 6 to 80 per cent., and 
quantities of payments were made, not only by merchants, 
but also by noble debtors scattered throughout the West. 
Regulations authorized proceedings against recalcitrant 
debtors and the recovery of debts. Bills of exchange or 
** fair letters’? were met or issued, furnished, if necessary, 

172 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


with the official seal. There were practised transfers of debts, 
transfers by clearance and carry over from one fair to 
another. It was there that the first great international stock 
exchange and produce market was opened. During the whole 
duration of the fairs a cosmopolitan crowd jostled each other 
in the roads of these Champagne towns, stopping at stalls, 
pressing into the shows and displays of buffoons and jong- 
leurs, flocking to the taverns, which were crowded with 
women of light life. By a remarkable piece of toleration 
games of chance were allowed, and no penalty overtook 
dabplers in illegitimate pleasures. 

In all ways the fairs exercised an incomparable power of 
attraction, and mark one of the chief stages in the advance 
of Western commerce. They brought classes and nations 
together, and made for the pacification of Christian Europe. 
They opened a way for conceptions of commercial law wider 
than those of the civil law. They stimulated international 
and national trade, and with them the spirit of enterprise. 
They did much to bring to an end the economic isolation in 
which the West had lived during the early Middle Ages, 
and they gave irresistible openings to a money economy. 

Maritime commerce, so limited during the first five 
centuries of the medieval period, began to develop from 
the time of the Crusades, and realized a progress similar to 
that which the fairs accomplished for land commerce. Sea- 
borne traffic was easier since the West had become a sort of 
Christian republic, and since the Western peoples had 
expanded into the Northern and Levantine lands. Naviga- 
tion became more active and more certain. The odious right 
of wreck, exercised at the expense of shipwrecked cargoes, 
was abolished in Italy, Catalonia, France, and England. 
The use of letters of marque and of reprisals, which allowed 
shipowners to be attacked as responsible for the individual 
or collective misdeeds of their compatriots, was restricted 
and regulated. Maritime law was laid down in collections 
such as the Statutes of Trani and of Marseilles, the Usages of 
Tortosa and Barcelona, the Rolls of Oleron and the Ordin- 
ances of Wisby, which regulated armaments, pilotage, sea 
risks, and harbour dues. In order to protect commerce or to 
regulate the litigation arising from it, special jurisdictions 
were set up, sea consulates on board ship, ordinary con- 

173 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


sulates, sea courts, mercanzie, admiralty courts in maritime 
cities. Maritime insurance policies appeared to guarantee 
the value of ships and cargoes, while the governments en- 
gaged in a war against piracy, which, though energetic at 
times, was fitful and of varying efficacy. 

At the same time the construction of lighthouses and the 
maintenance of ports was receiving attention. Naval dock- 
yards were built, notably at Venice, Genoa, Marseilles, and 
Barcelona. Side by side with small ships of low tonnage 
there were launched transport vessels of 500 to 600 tons 
(ussiers), which could carry 1,000 to 1,500 passengers. The 
Western states organized the first navies in order to protect 
commerce. Venice, Pisa, and Genoa owned the most power- 
ful of these, and in 1298 the latter had 200 ships manned by 
25,000 sailors. The Catalans were creating their navy in the 
thirteenth century at the same time as the Capetians, and 
France possessed at one time 118, and later 200 vessels with 
20,000 sailors. Sea pilotage began to make strides, thanks 
to the use of the compass, borrowed from the Arabs and 
perfected by the Sicilian sailors, who were the first to think 
of putting the magnetic needle on a movable pivot. The 
Italians and the Catalans made the first sea charts. Naviga- 
tion, though limited to the six spring and summer months, 
attained enormous proportions, in spite of the high cost of 
freight, and the incoherence and ceaseless variations of fiscal 
laws and customs. : 

Commercial interests obliged states to conclude the first 
commercial treaties with each other, and even forced the 
Christians themselves to negotiate agreements with the 
Moslems. The maritime powers obtained the concession of 
quarters and depéts in foreign towns, and sometimes, as in 
the Levant, jurisdictional privileges, the maintenance of 
which was entrusted to consuls and captains, and letters of 
protection and safe conducts. Already a fierce economic 
struggle was being waged between the commercial states, 
and often determined the orientation of their general policy. 
Commerce, now one of the great sources of wealth, attracted 
the most energetic and intelligent elements among the 
Western peoples. The Mediterranean, for a thousand years 
the cradle of civilization, became once more the most active 
centre of commerce, to the detriment of the Danube route, 

174 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


which had served in the Middle Ages as the road of inter- 
course between the Westerners and the Byzantine East. The 
Crusades had turned this sea into a Latin lake, whereon the 
Italian republics and the cities of Provence, Languedoc, and 
Catalonia could give free rein to their rivalry. These re- 
publics set up counting-houses everywhere in the Levant, 
in Egypt, in Cilicia (Lesser Armenia), at Cyprus, at Byzan- 
tium. Barcelona, Narbonne, Montpellier, Arles, Saint-Gilles, 
Marseilles, and, above all, Genoa, Pisa, and Venice grew rich 
by transporting pilgrims and crusaders, or by trading in 
Eastern goods. They went to Alexandria, Tyre, Fama- 
gusta, Trebizond, and Byzantium to fetch the spices, 
sugars, and sweet wines, the medicines and dyes, the pearls 
and precious stones, the perfumes and porcelains, the silks 
and the cloth of silver and gold, the muslins and cotton stuffs, . 
the carpets, the glasswork, damascened arms, and gold- 
smith’s work, which came from the East. In the Black and 
Caspian Seas they procured the corn, fish, skins, and even 
(despite prohibitions) slaves in which they traded. They 
carried to the Levant the produce of the West, corn, 
woollens, linens, and unworked metals. 

The greatness of Venice was founded upon trade. The 
city of the lagoons, born in the fifth century, but dating her 
rise to fortune from the conquest of the Adriatic (1002) and 
the charter of privileges of 1082, which granted her free trade 
for a century in the Byzantine states, won for herself in 1204 
a vast colonial empire in the Archipelago, seized the keys of 
the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and tried to get into her 
hands not only the commerce of the Levant, but also that 
of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, where she founded 
a counting-house at Tana, and sought to open up fruitful 
relations with the Far East by sending out missions of 
commercial exploration, the most famous of which was that 
of Marco Polo. Genoa, on her side, set up factories from 
Corsica to Caffa, at the edge of the great Russian plain; 
she established herself at Chio, and in 1261 obtained a lead- 
ing position at Byzantium, where her allies, the Palzologi, 
succeeded in restoring the Greek Empire; she disputed the 
Levantine trade with the Venetians and the trade of Northern 
Africa and Spain with the Pisans, whom she finally van- 
quished, launched a fleet on the Caspian, and sought to 

175 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


monopolize trade with Russia, and to drain a large part of 
that of Central Asia. Venetians and Genoese heaped up 
enormous riches by means of this commerce, but they had 
to give up a share in it, with a very ill grace, to the merchants 
of Provence, Languedoc, and Catalonia after the middle of 
the twelfth century. 

In the East and centre of Christian Europe, Spain, 
Western France, the Low Countries, and Germany were 
carving out for themselves a place of growing importance 
among the commercial powers. Both land and sea commerce 
reached an extent hitherto unknown in those regions. The 
unending flow of merchants followed two great internal trade 
routes. The road which went by way of the Po, the Alps, 
and the Danube put Genoa and Venice into connection with 
Vienna, Augsburg, Nuremburg, and Constance, while the 
route which followed the Rhéne and Saone united Mediter- 
ranean and Levantine Europe with Western Europe by 
means of the commercial centres of Champagne, the Ile-de- 
France, and Flanders, and even by way of the Meuse and 
the Moselle with the Rhenish lands. The sea routes of the 
Atlantic, so little frequented during the early Middle Ages, 
brought a happy animation to the ports of Galicia and 
Biscay, which exported salt, wine, oil, lead, tin, and iron 
to the West, and, above all, the French ports became active. 
Bordeaux revived in the twelfth century at the same time that 
Bayonne was developing and Rochelle was founded; Nantes, 
Rouen, Honfleur, and Dieppe likewise grew rich by trade 
with the British Isles and the Low Countries. Salt, corn, 
wine, honey, fruit, wool, hemp, flax, wax, and French 
linens were actively exchanged against the wool, skins, un- 
worked leather, tallow, salt meat, copper, lead, and tin of 
England and the manufactures of Flanders. Soon the 
advantages of this trade drew the attention of the Italians, 
who opened up relations with the Low Countries at the 
beginning of the fourteenth century by establishing their 
annual service of Venetian galleys, with its terminus at 
Sluys, the port of Bruges. 

While England, satisfied with her wealth as a privileged 
agricultural country, as yet felt no premonition of her future 
commercial vocation, Germany was trying to develop a 
maritime power. The trading cities of the North, the most 

176 . 


GROWTH OF WESTERN COMMERCE 


active of which was Liibeck, organized their great associa- 
tion, known as the Hanse, in the thirteenth century (1241). 
They aimed at monopolizing the two seas recently opened 
to trade by the Christian peoples, the North Sea and the 
Baltic, by way of which the West provided itself with fish 
and, above all, with raw materials—timber, tar, ashes, 
tallow, skins, leather, and furs—in exchange for the produce 
of the Levant and the merchandise of the South and West 
of Europe. 

In the space of 250 years commerce, far surpassing the 
bounds which it had reached in antiquity, transformed 
Christian Europe and brought about a real revolution in the 
history of labour. 

In truth, by opening a crowd of new markets, it provoked 
the development of industrial and agricultural production. 
The old economy of the domain was forced to transform 
itself and to open its doors to progress. The increase in 
consumption, the opening of external relations, the develop- 
ment of movable wealth, obliged the owners of landed 
capital to adapt themselves to the new conditions of 
economic life, to bring the soil under cultivation, and to 
seek by means of colonization to increase the value of the 
income from landed property, so as to avoid the ruin which 
dogged the footsteps of careless or unenterprising land- 
owners. The industrial workshops, working henceforward 
not merely for the local market, but also for regional and 
national, sometimes even for international markets, increased 
in activity. Industry felt the impulse given to it by 
commerce, which provided it with capital, raw material, 
orders, and outlets, and which stimulated both the spirit 
of enterprise and the division of labour. 

A new power was born and grew up, the power of mov- 
able capital, which transformed the character of trade and 
the circulation of goods, substituted a monetary for a 
natural economy, gave extraordinary flexibility, variety, and 
width to economic relations, and by the accumulation of 
commercial benefits allowed the constitution, renewal, and 
continual increase of forms of wealth, which were easily 
mobilized and capable of yielding high revenues. It opened 
the way to forms of economic activity far superior to those 
of the feudal economy, while at the same time it brought 

177 N 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


about the rise of mercantile and industrial classes, which 
were to become the rivals and sometimes the equals of the 
old feudal classes. It was thanks to this fruitful movement 
that workmen and peasants, now indispensable instruments 
of economic progress, were to become aware of their strength 
and to win their freedom. The economic and social trans- 
formation of Western Christendom was largely the result of 
the commercial revolution, which manifested itself and 
advanced ever more swiftly from the end of the eleventh 
century. 


178 


CHAPTER V 


THE RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY IN WESTERN CHRISTENDOM IN THE 
GOLDEN AGE OF THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD. 


Durinc the early feudal period (tenth to eleventh centuries) 
industrial activity was as yet embryonic. In the régime of 
natural and manorial economy which then prevailed the work 
of the artisan was seldom differentiated from that of the 
peasant, and industry was carried on only within the circle 
of the family or of the domain. The only existing forms of 
production were domestic industry and manorial industry 
on the great domains. 

In the former each family group sought to produce the 
necessities of life for itself, without recourse to external 
sources of supply. By means of the latter the governing 
classes, lords and men of religion, obtained for themselves 
goods manufactured by the labour of various groups 
(familiz) of servile workers, traditionally attached to the 
work—millers, bakers, brewers, weavers, tailors, tanners, 
shoemakers, masons, carpenters, smiths, potters, armourers, 
and even goldsmiths. Thus the bakers on the manors belong- 
ing to the Chapter of St. Paul’s in London were obliged to 
furnish the canons with 40,000 loaves a year, and the brewers 
delivered them 67,800 gallons of beer. Just as the serf of the 
soil was required to pay rents in kind and labour services, so 
the artisan serf was bound to perform his own peculiar work 
or to pay rents in manufactured goods. In such a system 
industrial production was, perforce, limited to a small 
number of products, and remained a stranger to the spirit 
of progress, for there was no individual interest to stimulate 
it. There existed also the rudiments of a class of urban 
artisans, distinct from the predominant industry of the 
domain workshops, notably in Italy and in France; they 
carried on their work in the suburbs or within the walls of 
the towns. But here, as in the country, the artisan was un- 
free and beneath the dominion of the lord, having but a 
restricted clientéle and field of action. 

From the eleventh century onwards a profound and pro- 

179 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


gressive transformation took place under various influences 
in the organization of industry. The most powerful influence 
was exercised by the rise of a money economy and of com- 
merce, which provided middlemen and workmen alike with 
what they had hitherto lacked—capital, sufficient supplies 
of raw material, and wide markets. Thus at first merchants 
and artisans were often included under the same name as 
traders (mercatores). It was in those parts of the West 
where commerce had sprung up again that industry received 
its first impetus, and just as commercial activity was cradled 
in the towns, so industrial activity, escaping from the sleepy 
atmosphere of the domain, grew in urban surroundings. For 
centuries industry developed in an urban form, henceforward 
eclipsing both domestic and manorial industry, attracting 
rural labour to itself and bringing about an enormous ex- 
pansion in the number of artisans. 

At the same time the expansion of the field of consump- 
tion and exchange stimulated the productivity of the work- 
shops. In peace as in war, by commerce, by voyages, by 
crusades, the West was introduced to the industrial methods 
and the more perfect forms of Byzantine and Moslem 
industry. She served her apprenticeship and soon equalled 
and sometimes surpassed her masters. Italy and France 
became, in their turn, the great initiators and promoters of 
progress and of the industrial revolution, which was, more- 
over, favoured by the intelligent efforts of monks (especially 
those belonging to French Orders), of princes, and of town 
governments. 

Technique itself was transformed. The use of wind 
power and of hydraulic power began to spread, and in a 
certain number of industries mechanical methods were intro- 
duced side by side with manual labour. The latter reached 
a high degree of skill in the textile industries and in the art 
industries, which often attained an incomparable perfection 
by reason of the careful training of the workers and the 
finish of execution. 

The most active forms of industry exercised within this 
urban framework were those which may be grouped under the 
name of the ** small industry ”’ of artisans. A special class of 
men became organized independent of the domain and dis- 
tinct from the agricultural class. These men had technical 

180 


THE RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY 


knowledge and lived on the produce of their craft, which 
the Middle Ages called their art. Under this régime the 
workman or artisan sometimes worked alone, and sometimes 
gathered together a few assistants in his workshop. He was 
the head of the business, and he chose his profession freely, 
according to his capacity. Above all, he worked for an 
urban or regional clientéle and market, and not merely for 
the lord and the domain. By dint of paying certain dues to 
his erstwhile masters, he won the right to dispose of the 
work of his hands; he was the owner of his tools and of the 
produce of his labour. 

His professional skill was manifested in various ways. 
Sometimes the artisan worked at home upon tasks which 
demanded no advanced specialization, either alone or with 
the help of his family. This form of domestic industry, 
adapted to urban conditions, sufficed for the needs of re- 
stricted groups of consumers. Side by side with home or 
domestic industry there also developed hired or wage labour, 
which the lords had allowed to grow up in consideration of 
the payment of dues, and which was organized in a more 
independent manner. The artisan worked on order, by the 
piece or by the day, in his own room or at the house of 
another, upon materials furnished to him, but with his own 
tools and with no need either of capital or of middlemen. 
He was paid directly by the employer in money or in kind. 
If his work was irregular, at least he was entirely free and 
he took the entire remuneration. Nevertheless, neither 
domestic work nor hired work lent themselves to that active 
production for a market which the economic evolution of 
the Middle Ages was rendering necessary. Thus they both 
diminished in importance before the development of what is 
the form par excellence of the small urban industry, to wit, 
the craft, or workshop industry. 

In this the artisan became essentially a small entre- 
preneur, whose centre of activity was the workshop in which 
he worked, assisted by his family or by a few apprentices 
and journeymen (compagnons). He possessed all the means 
of production ; first, capital—that is to say, the raw material 
and the tools with which he had furnished himself—and, 
secondly, labour, which he provided himself, with the help 
of a small number of assistants. Because of its modest size, 

181 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


his business did not require borrowed capital, and so he was 
able to enjoy the whole produce of his labour. Sometimes 
he worked at an agreed price for customers who gave him 
orders ; sometimes he worked for the local or regional market, 
either setting out his merchandise for sale on a stall in front 
of his shop, or taking it himself to the market-place, or 
selling it directly to a merchant. He never produced more 
than the normal amount of his sales, and his gain was 
therefore limited; but it was at least stable, and he shared 
it with no one. Thus it was the craft which attracted the 
mass of artisans, above all, when they had become emanci- 
pated. Thanks to it they made for themselves ‘*‘a golden 
field,’’ in the words of the picturesque German proverb, and 
could find vent for their energies beneath the stimulus of 
personal interest and of liberty. 

Within the framework of the free craft tabotee in the 
Middle Ages became productive and varied. It lent itself 
easily to the extensions demanded by the progress of 
specialization and the requirements of the market. It could 
subdivide itself into as many distinct professions as tech- 
nique and demand required. Thus in the woollen industry 
alone there were twenty-five distinct specialities in the thir- 
teenth century. But the division and specialization of labour, 
far from leading, as they have in our own day, to the con- 
centration of business enterprises, led in the Middle Ages to 
the multiplication of small urban industries, without altering 
their nature or threatening the autonomy of the little work- 
shop. The progress of industry was then accomplished by 
means of a multitude of individual enterprises, which sprang 
up on all sides and unceasingly increased production, and 
which provided the consumer with carefully made and 
abundant goods at prices which, though still expensive, were 
within his means. The honour for the magnificent industrial 
development of this period of the Middle Ages lies with the 
small industry and the class of urban artisans, which opened 
the way for the great industry of modern times. 

The latter was, however, beginning to announce itself, 
from the thirteenth century onwards, in a few special in- 
dustries and in districts such as the Low Countries, Italy, 
and Northern France, where a great international commerce 
had developed. It was here that there arose the first enter- 

182 


THE RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY 


prises working for a universal market, such as the cloth 
manufactures of Ghent, Ypres, Lille, Douai, Amiens, and 
Florence, the silkworks of Venice, and the copperworks of 
Dinant. Rich entrepreneurs, and even powerful corporations, 
undertook their direction. Such was the Arte di Calimala 
of Tuscany, which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
monopolized the purchase of English wool, and of the half- 
finished cloths coming from Flanders and Northern France, 
and finished, dyed, and prepared these stuffs, finally sending 
them out to all the markets of the Mediterranean. Such 
also was the Florentine association of merchants and manu- 
facturers known as the Arte della Lana, which was the rival 
of the Calimala, and established all the different varieties of 
the woollen manufacture upon the banks of the Arno. 

Elsewhere it was great merchants, like the poorters or 
coomannen of Flanders and Brabant, who maintained the 
activity of the individual workshops. At Ypres, 140 merchant 
drapers kept a whole industrial district at work. Sometimes, 
as at Amiens or in the Rhenish towns, subsidiary entre- 
preneurs of the drapery trade (gewandschneiders) existed 
side by side with the great merchants. At Florence the 
business was so complicated that it was possible to dis- 
tinguish beside the merchant drapers who acted as entre- 
preneurs for the manufacture, dealers who bought wool 
wholesale, washed and then retailed it (lanivendolt), and 
merchant entrepreneurs of worsted (stamawioli), who 
specialized in selling wool which they had previously spun, 
beaten, and combed. 

Whether it was simple or complex, the great industrial 
business thus emerging was distinguished from the small 
industry by certain original characteristics. Its organs were 
not yet the factory and the works. The merchant entre- 
preneurs contented themselves with setting up offices in their 
houses, served by a limited number of clerks, serving-men, 
and messengers, together with a warehouse for raw materials 
and finished goods. Nevertheless, in this elementary form 
of the great industry the separation between capital and 
labour was already manifest. The merchant entrepreneur 
was the sole owner of the materials, sometimes he provided 
the tools, always he disposed of the orders. He was the sole 
buyer and the sole seller of manufactured goods. The work- 

183 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


people—spinners, combers, carders, weavers, fullers, dyers— 
were no more than instruments of production in the hands 
of the capitalist, who paid them, directed them, hastened, 
slowed down, or stopped the work at will. Henceforth the 
nascent great industry exercised a social influence which 
was far from happy, but it helped to bring about the vigorous 
economic expansion of those forms of industry in which it 
appeared. 

The expansion which took place during these three 
centuries in industry, following in the wake of the expansion 
of commerce, extended to all branches, from mineral indus- 
tries to manufactures, and from necessities to articles of 
luxury. To fulfil the needs of monetary circulation, men 
taxed their ingenuity to exploit the veins of precious metals 
once again, reviving old methods or discovering new ones 
by experiment. Gold-seekers sifted the grains of gold, 
polished by the waters, from the sands of the rivers of the 
Alps, Cevennes, and Pyrenees, and especially from the Rhone, 
the Rhine, and the Po. They attacked the silver, lead, and 
argentiferous copper-mines of Upper Italy, Tuscany, Sardinia, 
Calabria, Upper Aragon, Dauphiné, Savoy, Auvergne, 
Viverais, Alsace, Derbyshire, and, most important of all, 
those of the Fichtelgebirge, the Erzgebirge, and the Harz 
district. Now began the fortune of the German mining towns, 
Freiberg, Annaberg, and Goslar, where the art of mining was 
perfected. Beds of metallic minerals were sought out and 
exploited. Iron-mines were worked in the Harz, Westphalia 
and Styria in Germany, Sussex in England, Namurois in the 
Low Countries, Haute-Champagne, Normandy, Dauphiné, 
Berry, Haut-Poitou, Périgord in France, Biscay in Spain, 
Bergamo, Calabria, and Sicily, and, above all, the Isle of 
Elba in Italy, where the first mining companies appeared. 

The West obtained its chief supplies of lead from Derby- 
shire, and Cornwall had almost a monopoly of tin, which 
was, however, disputed by Bohemia from about 1240. 
England and Germany profited by their copper-mines ; Spain 
by her mercury-mines at Almaden, which were reopened in 
the thirteenth century; Italy by the beds of sulphur and 
alum at Volterra, Pozzuoli, and Ischia. Lapidaries sent for 
rare and beautiful stones from the Pyrenees, from Auvergne, 
and from the Asturias. From the fine quarries of Italy, 

184 . 


THE RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY 


the Pyrenees, the Tournai district, Hainault, Brabant, High 
Burgundy, the Ile-de-France, the Caen country, and West- 
phalia architects obtained stone for the great buildings which 
were being reared on all sides. Coal-mines were beginning to 
be appreciated, although the use of vegetable fuel was still 
general. At Newcastle and Durham, in Hainault, above all 
in the basin of the Liége, in Bas-Languedoc, and in Forez, 
coal-mining was found profitable. The exploitation of salt- 
pans, salt springs, and salt marshes reached an extremely 
high level ; in 600 years those of the Salzburg country yielded 
10,000,000 tons of salt. Salt from the salt-pans of Limburg, 
Swabia, Lorraine, and Franche Comté sufficed for a good 
part of Kuropean consumption, the needs of which were met 
more especially by the salt marshes of the country round 
Nantes, of Bas-Poitou, and of Saintonge; and from the end 
of the thirteenth century the trading fleets of the North and 
West of Europe came in increasing numbers to this district. 
In the south the salt of Portugal, Spain, the Lower Po 
district, and the two Sicilies provided the Mediterranean 
market. 

Although metallurgy had not advanced far in the treat- 
ment of minerals and metals, for which it could only make 
use of vegetable fuel, a primitive furnace, a small hammer, 
or manual labour, nevertheless, under the stimulus of 
necessity, production had advanced by leaps and bounds. 
Little forges multiplied in all districts which combined the 
three elements necessary to their activity—wood, minerals, 
and waterfalls. Sometimes these workshops even worked 
for export. Manufactories of helmets, cuirasses, shields, 
swords, and other arms prospered in Italy at Milan, Pavia, 
Venice, Lucca, Florence, and Naples; in Spain at Toledo, 
Valencia, and Saragossa; in France in Guienne, Périgord, 
Poitou, Dauphiné, Languedoc, and Lyonnais; in Germany 
in Franconia, Saxony, Styria, and Carinthia. Barcelona, 
Vich, Lerida, Gerona, and, above all, Biscay, possessed many 
ironworks, and so also did the Alpine districts of Italy, 
France, and Germany, the French provinces of the east and 
the centre, the Meuse country, and Central Germany. The 
foundries of Lorraine won a growing renown. Valencia in 
Spain was noted for skilled workers in brass and copper, 
but they were surpassed by those of Dinant and Huy, from 

185 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


whose workshops the beautiful brass wares, known by the 
name of dinanderies, spread through Europe. Chatelleran- 
dais, Auvergne, the Bray country, and Haute-Champagne 
established the manufacture of cutlery, Paris that of iron 
and copper articles, Germany, France, and Italy that of 
wrought iron, hardware, and locksmiths’ work. In the 
thirteenth century a great French artist, Villard de Honne- 
court, prepared the future progress of clockmaking by the 
invention of clocks worked by weights and by escapement. 

The enormous development of the food industries, and of 
the majority of manufacturing industries and industries of © 
luxury and art, bears witness to the strength of the move- 
ment of wealth and trade in the West at this time. In the 
towns the food manufactures, which belong to the domain 
of the small workshop, multiplied and subdivided themselves 
to an infinite extent. Mills abounded in the country, thanks 
to the general use of water power, and from the twelfth 
century windmills also came into use. In 1086 Domesday 
Book records 5,000 water-mills in England alone, and in the 
thirteenth century there were 120 windmills in the single 
banlieue of Ypres. In the urban centres, corporations of 
butchers, bakers, pastry-makers, cookshop-keepers, and a 
crowd of others of the same sort became numerous and 
powerful associations. Italy was already producing pies 
and sea biscuits for export; Catalonia, Galicia, England, and 
the Low Countries exported salted provisions; and Flanders 
and England beer. The first manufactories of sugar, pre- 
served fruits, and syrups were set up, in imitation of those 
of the Arabs, in Provence, Andalusia, and Eastern Spain. 

In the weaving of fabrics, furniture, decoration, and art 
the West became the rival and soon the fortunate conqueror 
of the East. The conquest of this great industrial domain 
began with the cloth manufactures. Italy gained the leader- 
ship here, to the detriment of Byzantium, from which she 
snatched the monopoly of the production of fine cloths. 
From the twelfth century Milan was said to employ 60,000 
workers in this industry; a celebrated gild—that of the 
Umiliati—fostered the work there, and it spread to Venice, 
Bologna, Modena, and Verona. In this last town in 1300 
as many as 30,000 pieces of cloth were produced annually, 
irrespective of stockings and caps. Lucca, Siena, Pisa, 

186 


THE RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY 


Palermo, and Naples in their turn organized workshops, 
which were soon outstripped by those of Florence, where 
the Arte di Calimala had begun, in the twelfth century, to 
work up cloth imported from the West, and where the 
powerful corporation of wool (Arte della Lana) organized, in 
the thirteenth century, with the help of capitalist merchants, 
a great manufacture of fine cloths, which it exported all over 
Christendom. By 1306 the city on the Arno was manufac- 
turing in her 300 workshops more than 100,000 pieces of 
woollen cloth, worth 1,000,000 golden florins. In 1836 a 
third of the Florentine population (30,000 workmen) drew 
their livelihood from this industry, the annual revenue of 
which was estimated at 1,200,000 golden florins. 

From the twelfth century onwards the Low Countries 
began to rival Italy. Flanders and Brabant became great 
manufacturing districts, where woollen cloth was woven, so 
that the names of Fleming and weaver became synonymous. 
Saint-Omer, Douai, Lille, Bruges, Cambrai, Valenciennes, 
Louvain, Saint-Trond, Huy, Maestricht, Ypres, and Ghent 
sent forth to the great markets of the East and West their 
fine fabrics, serges, brunettes, striped, plain, or mixed cloths, 
dyed in bright colours, greens, reds, blues, and violets, and 
eagerly sought for everywhere. At Ypres the manufacture 
in 1318 had risen to 92,500 pieces. At Ghent 2,300 weavers 
worked at the cloth-looms. Here France, too, played an 
eminent part, and her cloth industry became her most im- 
portant form of industrial activity. It prospered in Picardy 
at Amiens and Saint-Quentin; in the Ile-de-France at 
Beauvais, Chartres, Senlis, Saint-Denis, and Paris; in Cham- 
pagne at Provins (which had 3,200 looms at work in the 
thirteenth century), Rheims, Chalons, and Troyes; in 
Normandy at Rouen, Elbeuf, Pavilly, Montivilliers, 
Darnétal, Bernay, Honfleur, Vernon, Aumale, Les Andelys, 
and Caen; in Central France at Bourges; in Languedoc at 
Toulouse, Carcassonne, Narbonne, Béziers, and Montpellier, 
which were beginning to export their manufactures to the 
Levant. The drapery of Rousillon and Catalonia, of Lower 
Aragon, and of Valencia, arose to rival that of the South of 
France. In the Germanic lands the woollen manufactures 
of Bale, Strasburg, Cologne, Augsburg, and Magdeburg, and 
the scarlet cloths of Regensburg and Passau became famous, 

187 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


and the French Cistercians and the Flemings introduced the 
art into Northern Germany. It even began to spread in 
England, and Stamford was exporting serges in the thirteenth 
century. 

The manufacture of hemp and flax began to emerge from 
the little family workshops, and became extraordinarily 
active, on account of the growing use of body linen and the 
demands of trade. From the Arabs and Byzantines Southern 
Italy and Catalonia learned to make fine linen. This industry 
flourished in France, in Champagne, Normandy, Maine, the 
Ile-de-France, and Burgundy, which exported their linens all 
over Christendom. 

In the Low Countries the manufacture began to pass 
from the country districts into the towns of Flanders. In 
Germany, Cologne, St. Gall, Swabia, Franconia, and 
Thuringia rivalled the French provinces and _ towns. 
Navarre, Guiptizcoa, and, above all, Brittany, excelled in 
the production of sail-cloth. Under the name of muslins and 
fustians there even appeared the first cotton fabrics, imitated 
from the Byzantines and Arabs, and manufactured in Italy, 
in Catalonia at Valencia, in Languedoc at Carcassonne, and 
in Provence at Arles. From the East, also, the West stole 
the secret arts of the silk manufacture. It appeared as 
early as the eleventh century at Lucca, in the twelfth at 
Palermo, thanks to Roger II, then at Lucera, Reggio, Naples, 
Venice, and Florence in the thirteenth century, and at Zurich 
at the beginning of the fourteenth. Christian Spain, on 
its side, inherited the Arab silk manufactures at Almeria, 
Valencia, Carthagena, Jaen, and Seville. The Western 
dyers, Italians, French, and Flemings, became the fortunate 
rivals of the dyers of the East. Tapestry work ceased to be 
the monopoly of the Arabs and Byzantines. Cuenca and 
Chinchilla .in Spain carried on the Saracen tradition. 
Florence began to fabricate many-coloured carpets and 
rugs. Low-warp rugs and tapestries, first woven in the 
workshops of Poitiers and Limoges, later brought wealth to 
those of Paris, Rheims, Amiens, Arras, and Lille. ‘* Turkish”’ 
carpets of velvet pile, and then, at the beginning of the 
fourteenth century, high-warp carpets made their appearance 
side by side with native rugs. Embroidery became a really 
’ artistic industry. Byzantium, mistress of fashion, was, in 
188 


PLATE III 


GLASS MAKING 


(15th Century) 


[face p. 188 


THE RENAISSANCE OF INDUSTRY 


the thirteenth century, dethroned by Italy and France and, 
above all, by Paris. 

Work upon skins and leathers, practised in a number of 
districts where tanning and currying prospered, particularly 
in Italy, France, and Germany, gave rise to the opening of 
innumerable workshops, of which the most famous were 
those for the sale of furs and skins at Paris, for saddlery, 
harness, and footgear at Paris, Florence, Naples, Valencia, 
Cordova, Saragossa, and Barcelona, and for gilded leathers 
at Cordova and Venice, and also in the two Sicilies and 
France. 

The shipbuilding industry gradually became organized in 
the West. Furniture making, in which the French, Italian, 
and Flemish carpenters excelled, was inherited from the 
Byzantines, just as in the thirteenth century the Italian and 
Spanish mosaic workers and potters supplanted the Greek 
artists at Palermo, Pesaro, Lucera, Valencia, Toledo, Seville, 
Calatayud, and Majorca. Glassworks sprang up in France 
devoted to the manufacture of common glass, while Venice 
as early as the eleventh century robbed Byzantium of the 
secret of making mirrors and artistic glasswork, and in 
1292 founded the famous workshops of Murano. The 
Parisian and Italian ivory-workers of the same period sur- 
passed their Byzantine predecessors. 

Finally, in the domain of the art industries the West 
outran the East and took the lead, both in originality of 
design and in extent of production. Here France held a 
supremacy recognized by all. She covered Christendom 
with admirable monuments of Romanesque and Gothic 
architecture, with her sculptures, her wall-paintings, and her 
stained glass. Her master craftsmen, bred in hundreds of 
workshops maintained in the abbeys and towns and country 
districts, went everywhere, with thousands of workmen, 
bearing witness by their work to the superiority of the 
French industry (opus francigenum). It was France again 
which gave to Christendom her masterpieces of goldsmiths’ 
work, her champlevées and cloisonnées enamels, her richly 
illuminated manuscripts. Mistress of science as of art, she 
had innumerable workshops of parchment-makers and 
copyists, until the paper and cotton manufactures created 
in imitation of the Arabs at Palermo, Jativa, and Valencia in 

189 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the thirteenth century, and later in various French provinces, 
permitted the old costly material, by the aid of which thought 
was transmitted, to be superseded by an economical sub- 
stance, which was to facilitate the diffusion of the works of 
human intelligence. 

A teeming activity transformed the Western world. A 
multitude of artists and artisans created, regenerated, or 
developed the different varieties of industrial work, and tore 
the sceptre of industry from the Byzantine and Moslem East 
in its decadence, endowing the West with new sources of 
wealth. The commercial and industrial classes made their 
entry upon the stage of history ; they were now ready to win 
for themselves a social position which corresponded to the 
growing importance of their rdle. 


190 


CHAPTER VI 


EMANCIPATION OF THE COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL CLASSES.—THEIR 
PART IN THE URBAN RENAISSANCE OF THE ELEVENTH TO FOURTEENTH 
CENTURIES IN THE WEST. 


Tue first effect of the resurrection and development of 
commerce and industry was to bring about a renaissance of 
town life. From the middle of the tenth to the fourteenth 
century this movement became extraordinarily widespread, 
and it was then that almost all the towns of Christian Europe 
were created or reborn. The old Roman cities, usually 
situated upon the great trade routes, rose in numbers from 
their ruins. In the shelter of monasteries and strong castles, 
burgs grew up almost daily; and about 420 towns out of 
500 French towns originated in this way. Many were simple 
manorial centres (ville) promoted to the dignity of towns, 
when walls were built up round them; others arose to serve 
as a refuge for colonization, under the name of villes neuves 
(new towns), villes franches (free towns), bourgs neufs, 
sauvetés, and bastides. Such was the intensity of this 
renaissance that, besides those countries in which urban life 
had always lingered on, such as Italy and the South of France, 
almost the whole of the West became covered with cities. 
Germany possessed as many as 38,000, although the majority 
of them remained no more than fortified villages or burgs; 
England possessed 275. The reappearance and extension of 
this urban life, which had been so shattered during the early 
Middle Ages, was closely connected with the formation and 
progress of the industrial and commercial classes. 

At first merchants and artisans lived in a state of sub- 
_ ordination in the little town of the feudal era, which often 
numbered a bare thousand souls and usually had to bow to 
the authority of several rival masters, bishop, abbot, count, 
governor, or feudal lord. They were grouped into services 
(familiz), attached in a servile capacity to the lords of the 
place and to their officers; they dwelt in the shadow of the 
church or the palace of the count or lord, side by side with 
a population of small officials, domestic serfs, and even culti- 

191 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


vators and gardeners. But the merchants were more mobile 
by reason of the exigences of their profession, and more 
adventurous by temperament, and sometimes, indeed, were 
of foreign or suspect origin, and preferred to live in the 
suburb, which lay along road or river, by the side of which 
they established their shops and houses, surrounded by a 
palisade or enclosure, adjoining that of the castle. It was 
these merchants who formed the progressive element, to 
which is due the emancipation of the towns. As early as 
the eleventh century they are sometimes found enriching the 
towns by their active traffic—for example, in Upper Italy, on 
the Danube, Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, and on the shores of | 
the Mediterranean. Thus Venice grew, and Milan, Pisa, 
Amalfi, Genoa, Narbonne, Montpellier, Arles, Amiens, Saint- 
Quentin, Valenciennes, Cambrai, Ghent, Bruges, Cologne, 
Worms, Speier, Strasburg, Augsburg, and Regensburg. They 
often organized water transport, whence their name of 
poorters in the Low Countries, and they carried on banking 
at the same time as commerce. The richest of them formed 
an aristocracy of notables (meliores), which was sometimes 
numerous; there were 600 at Cologne. Some of them gave 
their daughters in marriage to knights. In Italy they even 
approached so closely to the nobility as sometimes to be 
reckoned noble; at Venice the patriciate was formed 
of great merchants, among whom was the Doge himself. 
Everywhere they sought to win the social rank to which 
their fortune permitted them to aspire. As in all analogous 
crises in the history of labour, commercial and industrial 
activity, in proportion as it bred wealth, engendered at the 
same time the need for freedom. 

Moreover, very soon the servitude in which the merchant 
and artisan lived became incompatible with the exigences of 
their economic expansion. The feudal system, which allowed 
the trader and the manufacturer neither property, nor civil 
and commercial liberty, nor even personal freedom, strangled 
labour in such tight bands that its vitality could not develop. 
The system, by its fiscal regulations, its tyranny, and its 
anarchy, impeded the development of trade and the activity 
of the workshops. It did not even maintain order and 
security, conditions which are indispensable to economic 
progress. It was for this reason that the merchants, who 

192 


EMANCIPATION OF WORKING CLASSES 


between 1004 and 1080 were beginning to be called burgesses 
(burgenses) because of their habitual residence in the suburbs 
and new quarters of the fortified towns (burgs), sought in 
voluntary association the means of defence, which the feudal 
authorities could not provide for them. The associations 
which they organized, under the various names of gilds, 
hanses, fraternities, brotherhoods, charities, banquets, and 
which had their heads, their secretaries and officials, their 
assemblies, their subscriptions and their treasuries, were not 
political in character. But they grouped together under a 
solemn oath both great and small. merchants, in order to 
give them the benefit of mutual assistance, both in the realm 
of religion and charity and in the protection of common 
economic interests. The association kept up the house of 
the community, or gildhall, in which the members met 
together; it arranged for markets, docks, ports, ships, 
organized caravans and armed escorts, guaranteed indemni- 
ties in case of theft, damage, or loss, sometimes even nego- 
tiated commercial treaties with the feudal governments. 
The gild merchant was at this time far bolder than the 
artisans’ fraternity, which as yet had only a religious 
purpose, and bolder also than the nascent industrial craft or 
corporation, which was being timidly formed in a small 
number of trades, with the permission of the lord and under 
the permanent control of his officials. The craftsmen 
possessed as yet neither the wealth, nor the cohesion, nor the 
breadth of view of the merchants. It was the latter who con- 
ceived the common programme of emancipation and brought 
it to triumphant success by their co-ordinated, considered, 
and energetic action, and it was the merchant gild which 
engaged in the battle, directed it, and won it. 

The movement began in the eleventh century in those 
Western countries in which the renaissance of commerce 
allowed the merchant classes to realize their power and gave 
them the will to break their bonds. The merchant patriciate, 
upheld by the mass of small traders and artisans, leaning 
now upon the Papacy and clergy, now upon the smaller 
nobility, profited by the divisions of the feudal classes and 
played off each against the other. At Venice from 976 they 
broke the monarchical power of the Doge; at Milan (in four 
revolutions between 987 and 1067) that of the archbishop; 

198 fe) 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


at Piacenza (1090), at Lodi (1095), at Cremona (1095), at 
Viacenza, Bologna, Pavia, Lucca, Genoa, that of the feudal 
nobility. In Provence and Languedoc, knights and 
merchants led the assault against the seigniorial power. At 
Marseilles the merchant fraternity of the Holy Spirit roused 
the sailors’ quarter and proclaimed a consulate and municipal . 
autonomy. Le Mans (1069), Noyen (1027), Corbie, Amiens 
(1030) revolted to gain freedom of trade. At Beauvais 
(1074-1099) it was the dyers who waged war against the 
bishop. At Cambrai (1057-1076) and at Cologne the rich 
merchants engaged in a desperate struggle with the arch- 
bishop. In this initial phase the majority of syndicalist 
revolutions (as we may call them) collapsed, but a few suc- 
ceeded. Sometimes, as at Saint-Quentin (1080), Douai, 
Arras, and Saint-Omer, the gild succeeded in winning its 
first liberties by peaceful means. From the eleventh century 
in Italy, the South of France, and Béarn the merchant classes 
obtained in certain places the right to participate in political 
life through the election of doges, consuls, or bishops, or were 
associated in a consultative capacity in the administrative 
life and financial administration of the town. In the majority - 
of Western countries the merchants, in default of civil and 
political rights, obtained fiscal exemptions, economic privi- 
leges, and, above all, a special jurisdiction (jus mercatorum), 
which removed them from the caprices of local justice, and 
a special peace—the town peace, imposed upon all by oath— 
which guaranteed the security of their persons and property. 
But these concessions were insufficient. Thus in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries merchants and workers 
joined in vast federations, sometimes public and sometimes 
secret, called paix, communes, communia, conjurationes. In 
vain the Church tried, by the voice of her canonists and 
saints, Yves of Chartres and Bernard of Clairvaux, to bar 
the way to these confederations of workers ‘*‘ of new and 
execrable name,’’? as the historian Guibert of Nogent 
describes them. In vain the feudal baronage, and sometimes 
even the monarchy, tried to stay the revolution by a policy 
of rigorous and often atrocious repression. Everywhere the 
movement of emancipation triumphed more or less com- 
pletely, sometimes by peaceful, sometimes by violent means. 
The merchant and industrial classes, exploiting the divisions 
194 


EMANCIPATION OF WORKING CLASSES 


of their adversaries, in one place joining the smaller against 
the greater nobility, in another the Church or the royal 
power against feudalism, in yet another feudalism against 
the Church. They profited by the cupidity of the feudal 
powers and bought charters of freedom from them. The 
more intelligent among those in authority even made spon- 
taneous concessions of authority to their subjects, in the 
hope of increasing their productive power by emancipating 
them. 

But in a large number of places violence was the midwife 
of liberty and of the new society of communes. In Lombardy 
and Tuscany the bourgeoisie and the people, with the bold 
merchants of Milan at their head, won their independence 
only at the cost of sanguinary struggles with the great nobles 
and the imperial power. It was by repeated risings that the 
working people of Languedoc and Provence, the towns of 
Arles, Marseilles, Nimes, Carcassonne, Avignon, Béziers, 
Montpellier, and Toulouse succeeded in shaking off the 
feudal yoke. On the initiative of French and Italian 
merchants in Spain, at Compostella (1103-1136), Lugo, 
Orvieto, Sahagun, the people rose against ecclesiastical 
authority. In the twelfth century a wind of revolution blew 
upon almost all the towns of the West. In 1184 Poitiers, at 
that time an industrial and commercial town, tried to form 
an urban federation after the Italian model, in conjunction 
with the cities of Poitou. Cambrai in 1127, Compiégne in 
1128, Amiens in 1118 and 1177, Orleans and Mantes in 1187, 
Vézelay and Sens in 1146, Rheims in 1144, and in the north 
and east the Flemish and Rhenish towns—Ghent, Tournai, 
Liége, Speier, Worms, Cologne, Mainz, Treier—sought to 
safeguard their economic future by rising in insurrection 
against the arbitrary power of lord or monarch. London 
itself tried to proclaim a commune in 1141. The revolution 
sometimes assumed the implacable and tragic aspect of a 
class war. At Laon burgesses and peasants assassinated 
their bloodthirsty and debauched bishop. At Vézelay and 
at Sens the rich Burgundian merchants rid themselves of 
rapacious and oppressive abbots by murder. The tenacity 
and energy displayed by these traders and artisans in their 
fight for freedom was unequalled; at Laon they thrice took 
up arms, at Vézelay five times, and at Tours twelve. The 

195 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


victory of the communes and their success in winning 
emancipation was a proof of the new power of the urban 
associations, united as they were in the firm determination 
to make good their right to work and to an independent 
life. 

The movement towards emancipation was the outcome of 
such imperative social and economic necessities that it 
triumphed throughout the West. But it was far from pre- 
senting the same character everywhere, and from conferring 
the same degree of independence upon all urban populations. 
In lands where monarchical and feudal governments had 
preserved or acquired a certain amount of power, the com- 
mercial and industrial classes were obliged to content them- 
selves with the grant of civil and economic liberties and a 
small number of administrative liberties, such as those which 
are stipulated in the Charters of Lorris, Breteuil, or Beau- 
mont, from which 380 towns in France, the Low Countries, 
and England benefited. Rather more extensive liberties 
were conferred upon boroughs with a considerable burgess 
population, which received charters of the type of the 
Etablissements of Rouen, but they were not granted political 
autonomy. In Germany, under the Hohenstaufen, in France 
under the Capetians, in England under the Plantagenets, 
and in the two Sicilies under the Anglo-Norman monarchy, 
the urban populations were able to win only a minimum of 
emancipation. Only a small number of towns in Italy, 
Southern and Northern France, and the Low Countries, 
where commercial life was most fully developed, reached 
complete independence, and formed real states, bourgeois 
republics, on the same footing as the old feudal states. But 
the general result of the communal movement, which may 
perhaps be called the first syndicalist revolution, was none 
the less favourable to the masses who gained a livelihood in 
the towns by their labour and by the pursuit of commerce 
and industry. For the first time thousands of men, forming, 
perhaps, a tenth of the whole population of the West, won 
equality and civil liberty, benefits which, throughout an- 
tiquity and the Dark Ages, had been enjoyed only by 
infinitesimal minorities. For the first time in the towns the 
mass of the workers, from the great merchant to the journey- 
man, found themselves members of a free association, an 

196 


EMANCIPATION OF WORKING CLASSES 


urban association endowed with a legal right and distinctive 
privileges. 

The urban group—the town—really came during this 
period into the full enjoyment of a life of which it had 
hitherto possessed merely the shadow. It became a young 
and vigorous organism, greedy to enrich itself with fresh 
blood, and one in which the economic function dominated 
all the rest. Anxious to enrich itself with human capital or 
labour power, the urban community, or burgess body, 
granted the enjoyment of its right and privileges to serfs and 
villeins, artisans and merchants, who took refuge within its 
walls. It could exercise a legal right of admission (droit 
d’accueil). In order to be admitted to full burgess privileges, 
it was sufficient to reside for a year and a day in a town, to 
contract marriage there, to possess there a freehold of low 
value, or merely a rent, which could serve as guarantee in 
a court of justice. The community did not even exclude 
immigrants without resources, who brought only their strong 
arms with them. It granted them civil without political 
rights. In the southern lands it was also open to the class 
of knights, which did not profess that disdain for the bour- 
geoisie which was habitual with the higher military castes. 
In fact, the urban community was justly suspicious only of 
irreducible elements, whose interests were clearly opposed to 
its own—to wit, the feudatories and the churchmen, whom it 
formally excluded from burgess rights. It was an association 
for mutual defence, and it exacted from its members an 
absolute devotion, sealed by an oath, in exchange for the 
precious rights which it assured them, above all, in the 
domain of practical interests, and in return for the inde- 
pendence which it conferred upon their work. 

In principle, indeed, according to the original law of each 
urban group, all the citizens of the town enjoyed equal rights. 
This is the fertile germ out of which, far more than out of 
_ the equality proclaimed by the feudal group, there sprang 
medieval democracy, the mother of all modern democracies. 
No one was admitted among the burgesses in order to claim 
special privileges. Further, the burgess, artisan, or merchant 
enjoyed personal liberty. ‘‘ Town air makes a man free,”’ 
said the German proverb. If there were still serfs or villeins 
in towns like Chartres, they were not to be found within the 

197 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


true circle of the urban community, but in that part of the 
city which had remained beneath seigniorial authority. But 
the town was so essentially the refuge of liberty that it was 
called a franchise, and the dweller therein was essentially 
free. Consequently he possessed all the rights which derive 
from civil liberty. He could marry and give his children in 
marriage at will, could move away at his pleasure, come and 
go, dispose of his property as of his person, acquire, possess, 
alienate, exchange, sell, will and bequeath his goods, movable 
and immovable, without being subjected to seigniorial con- 
trol. His lands could be transmitted, burdened with rents 
and mortgages, pledged, in a word, easily realized, so as to 
facilitate all the operations of commerce. This is why 
burgess property was often valued at a higher rate than 
feudal property, which was hampered by a crowd of restric- 
tions in all contracts involving alienation or pledges. The 
town dweller obtained freedom of trade; he became master 
of the urban market, where he was no longer hampered by 
monopolies, tolls, tonnage, rights of banvin (or the sale of 
wine), of hospitality, and of procuration, dues, services, 
corvées, and the seigniorial privilege of buying on credit, 
which had hitherto so greatly hindered production and trade. 
By the power of money he was able to overthrow the barriers 
which feudal power had set in the way of free economic 
activity. He obtained the grant of privileges, which enabled 
him to recover his debts speedily, and of guarantees, which 
put an end to the arbitrary judgments and penalties of 
seigniorial justice. Sometimes he bought freedom from that 
justice and substituted for it the court of the commune itself. 
Almost everywhere he extorted from those whom he found 
in authority exemptions from and reductions of tolls. He 
obliged them to reform and simplify procedure and civil and 
criminal law. In questions of debts, pledges, mortgages, 
commercial affairs, he obtained the simple and logical legis- 
lation and the rapid means of execution which are required 
by business. Finally, he imposed upon all, and especially 


upon the feudal class, if need be by force, a respect for the 


town peace, which was necessary for the safety of economic 

relations. He decreed the abolition of family wars within 

the city ; he safeguarded the quiet of market, fair, and high- 

way by rigorous rules. He succeeded in bringing about the 
198 


EMANCIPATION OF WORKING CLASSES 


triumph of the principles of equality, liberty, and order, so 
indispensable to mercantile and industrial societies. He 
placed them beneath the protection of the sacred symbol 
of the stone cross, which stood in every village, the visible 
sign of the new rights of the bourgeoisie. 

The urban communities of the West experienced various 
degrees of political emancipation. The greater number of 
them, towns with a large burgess class, or centres of 
colonization, particularly in France, Southern Italy, 
England, Spain, and Germany, were obliged to recognize 
the sovereignty of a suzerein, who granted them charters of 
privileges, on which was based the legal existence of the 
municipal body. Paris, London, Rouen, Bordeaux, Palermo, 
Messina lived under this régime, as well as thousands of little 
urban groups. Under the control of officials appointed by the 
power which made the concession—bailiffs, provosts, judges, 
sheriffs, écoutétes, corregidors—the burgess body, repre- 
sented by pairs, jurats, and aldermen, nevertheless obtained 
considerable autonomy in administration, the choice of 
magistrates, finance, and, above all, economic affairs, in 
conformity with its essential needs. 

Elsewhere, in Northern and Central Italy, the South 
and North of France, and the Low Countries as early as 
the twelfth century, and in the Rhine and Danube lands of 
Germany from the thirteenth century, there appeared re- 
publics, quasi-sovereign states, communes, villes de consulat, 
free towns which reached a higher degree of power. These 
urban communities governed themselves through their 
general assemblies, representative bodies, senates, great 
and small councils, aldermen’s courts, and through their 
elected magistrates, mayors, jurats, consuls, and aldermen. 
They formed collective lordships, as independent, proud, 
and jealous of their liberty as the feudal sovereigns them- 
selves. 

But alike in the boroughs and centres of colonization and 
in the consular towns and communes, the commercial and 
industrial classes succeeded in winning the essential object 
of their efforts—to wit, the recognition of their right to free 
and equal association. This association, composed of all the 
merchants, artisans, and householders, rich and poor, held 
collectively the complete or partial sovereignty, which was 

199 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


conceded to it. It was the whole body of burgesses which 
delegated the exercise thereof to its agents, whether an 
oligarchy aspired to govern in its name, or whether it par- 
ticipated directly in all business. It was in the name of the 
whole community, the universitas of burgesses, that the 
municipal government was carried on. It was the whole 
mercantile community which contributed by direct and in- 
direct taxes to the municipal treasury and met the expenses 
of administration, of the magistracy, and of defence, which 
formed also the staff and the troops of the communal 
militia. Upon it rested the political power of the city, and 
its economic activity was the guarantee of the liberties 
which it had won. 

Thus, beneath the gilding of romance which covers the 
history of the medieval communes, through the noise of the 
tumultuous life which was played out within their walls, 
in their. public squares, under the shadow of their belfries 
and town halls, and amid all the fierce struggles of parties 
disputing with each other for power, there appears clearly a 
united, continuous, and realistic policy pursued by the urban 
states, a policy which has almost always been misunderstood, 
for lack of a careful study of their organization. That policy 
was entirely governed by economic interests; its aim was to 
develop the power. of production. The urban community, 
whether it was ruled by a bourgeois patriciate, by a 
democracy, or by bodies recruited from among the different 
classes in the city, was inspired by the same aims that had 
guided it in its efforts to gain emancipation. It pursued 
with untiring energy and rigid logic the maintenance and 
increase of its economic privileges, the enrichment of the 
community by means of organized work, so as to assure the 
power and greatness of the municipal state. It was in order 
to realize these practical ends that it struggled against the 
established powers—empire, kings, lay and ecclesiastical 
lords. In order the better to preserve them, it even resigned 
itself to renounce its exclusiveness and to form fraternities 
and leagues with other towns, such as those which were 
organized among the Lombard and Tuscan cities, the sixty- 
two cities of the Rhineland, the sixty-seven Flemish cities, 
the thirty-two cities of Leon and Galicia, and the maritime 
cities of Cantabria, whose action safeguarded the liberties 

200 


4 


EMANCIPATION OF WORKING CLASSES 


and economic prosperity of vast regions. In general these 
governments were inspired by a jealous local patriotism, a 
selfish particularism, born of an unyielding attachment to 
the commercial and industrial interests of the urban com- 
munity, upon which was founded the power of the municipal 
state; they represented the ideas and tendencies of the pro- 
ducing classes, who were now sovereign, or at least invested 
with partial sovereignty. 

It was, however, in economic affairs that these urban com- 
munities, boroughs, centres of colonization, and communes 
possessed the widest powers, powers, indeed, the extent of 
which astonishes the historian. Everything was done to 
endow the mercantile and industrial bourgeoisie, in all its 
elements from the humblest to the greatest, with a body of 
privileges, monopolies, and regulations destined to stimulate 
the power of work, the expansion of trade, and the growth 
of wealth. Careful to attract immigrants, who brought to it 
the help of their labour, their inventions and their precious 
capital, and to stimulate a development of agricultural 
colonization in the surrounding country which would secure 
the urban food supply, the bourgeois state worked solely for 
the profit of its members, without any regard for the rights 
- of neighbouring and hostile communities. For this reason it 
set itself implacably to destroy seigniorial domination in 
order to substitute its own; it subjected the peasants of the 
surrounding district to itself, prevented commerce and crafts 
from being carried on outside its walls, and set narrow limits 
to the competition of strangers (‘‘ foreigners ’’), whom it 
suspected of defrauding its members of part of the reward of 
their activity. These strangers were forbidden to trade 
retail; they were strictly supervised and obliged to find 
sureties, and subjected to a variety of regulations and 
prohibitions and differential payments. Each town made 
itself a sort of sphere of influence on land or sea, to which it 
admitted no rivals, and access to which was forbidden if 
necessary by force of arms, as is seen, for example, in the 
case of the Venetians, the Pisans, the Genoese, the Floren- 
tines, and the Flemings. When it opened or raised its 
barriers the municipal state obtained for itself treaties or 
conventions of reciprocity and friendship, in such a way 
as to risk the alienation of none of its essential prerogatives. 

201 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


The constant aim of urban policy was to develop trade 


and production. To this end the commune was at pains to 
attract entrepreneurs and workmen by privileges, and after- 
wards to preserve its trade secrets with the utmost jealousy. 
In virtue of the right of staple, it arrogated to itself the 
power of stopping foodstuffs and raw materials in transit, or 
buying them on preferential terms. It obtained monopolies 
of transport, purchase, and commerce. The urban govern- 
ments reserved the right of buying and selling for the 
members of the community, and conferred upon employers 
and workmen the privilege of exercising crafts and forming 
corporations. For traders and manufacturers they created 
ports, market-halls, markets, highways, sometimes canals, 
and passenger and transport services; they promoted the 
organization of banks and stabilized the coinage. They 
defended the interests, persons, and goods of their members 
in the outside world. 

They held that commerce and industry were functions 
which should be exercised for the common advantage of the 
community. Thus by a body of rules which fixed wages, 
prices, the division of purchases of raw material, the technical 
standards of manufacture, and sales in open market, they 
sought to prevent monopolies, abusive speculations, frauds, 
anarchy in production and trade, so as to maintain a sort of 
economic equality within the city, and to discipline and 
co-ordinate individual effort, and increase its efficacy for 
the greater good of the community. Nor did they neglect 
the interests of the consumer; they gave him rights of pre- 
emption by the regulation of the market; they sought to 
guarantee that all transactions should be honest and open, 
and they were at pains to provide a cheap and regular food 
supply for the masses. 

This dominant preoccupation of urban policy, which 
always gave the first place to economic interests, had mag- 
nificent results. It made the medieval towns living and 
progressive centres of activity. To most of them it brought 
wealth, due to the productive capacity of a labour which was 
emancipated, honoured, and protected. It drew into the 
towns an ever-increasing population. In those which were 
enriched by commerce and industry the movement and life of 
days gone by was born again—for example, in the Two 

202 


~ a a 


EMANCIPATION OF WORKING CLASSES 


Sicilies, in Central and Northern Italy, in Eastern Spain, in 
the South and North of France, in the Rhineland, and in the 
Low Countries. Great urban populations appeared once more. 
Palermo numbered about half a million souls in the twelfth 
century ; Florence had 100,000 in the thirteenth, Venice and 
Milan over 100,000, Asti 60-80,000, Paris 100,000 at the end 
of the twelfth century, and perhaps 240,000 at the end of 
the thirteenth ; Douai, Lille, Ypres, Ghent, Bruges, each had 
nearly 80,000, London 40-45,000. Henceforth about a tenth 
of the population of the West flowed into the towns, which 
became the homes of a vivid life. The industrial and com- 
mercial classes which had created them displayed eminent 
aptitude for the art of government, far superior to that of 
the feudal classes. It was among them that the class of 
administrators, which was to furnish the monarchical 
governments with their most useful staff, served its appren- 
ticeship. They possessed, above all, a clear insight into 
those economic interests which are the basis of the fortune 
of states. But these merchants and artisans recognized also 
and cared for the greatness of the little municipal fatherland, 
wherein they had succeeded in acquiring freedom and 
power. Thanks to them there was born a new urban civiliza- 
tion, which was manifest in all spheres, social, intellectual, 
and artistic. It gave rise to a magnificent harvest of 
charitable institutions, centres of learning and even of litera- 
ture, the inspiration of which was essentially bourgeois. It 
developed among the towns that spirit of generous emulation 
to which we owe so many works of public utility or of art, 
the market-places and halls, ports, bridges, quays, fountains, 
town halls, belfries, cathedrals, and churches, with which 
each city sought to adorn itself, and on which it was fain 
to set its mark. 

The emancipation of millions of men belonging to the 
commercial and industrial classes, to whom this marvellous 
expansion of urban life was due, is one of the capital 
events of history. The urban commune, which was the 
work of the merchant and the artisan, took its place in the 
political and social hierarchy, side by side with the feudal 
lordship. Henceforth it was, for the West and for the whole 
world, one of the most active instruments of progress and 
liberty. At the same time it gave the commercial and in- 

208 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EURO 


dustrial classes a framework in which they could - group’ 
themselves and give themselves a powerful organization, 
and thanks to which they were able to improve the conditions 
of their existence and for the first time to enforce a recog- 
nition of the value and the power of work. 


204 


CHAPTER VII 


ORGANIZATION AND CONDITION OF THE COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL 
CLASSES IN THE WEST FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH 
CENTURIES. 


THE commercial and industrial classes had united to conquer 
their freedom; now after the victory they began definitely 
to organize themselves. While, on the one hand, their associa- 
tions became legal organisms, on the other, the elements of 
which they were composed fell into distinct groups, accord- 
ing to their natural affinities. The richest among them 
formed a veritable aristocracy, a patriciate, while on their 
side the masses formed a vast democracy of free crafts and 
sworn corporations. 

For about a century and a half, and sometimes longer, 
the patriciate occupied the leading place. It differed in 
character in the different countries. In Italy and the South 
of France the lesser nobility of knights (milites), who had 
taken upon themselves the direction of the work of emancipa- 
tion, profited thereby in the majority of towns by seizing 
control of the municipal government. These knights owned 
rural manors in the country, and possessed, within the city 
walls, palace-fortresses, built out of enormous blocks of 
stone, crowned by high square towers, and adorned by plat- 
forms and battlements, to which access was gained by 
narrow posterns kept bolted with iron bars and chains. In 
Florence, Bologna, Milan, Avignon, and in a number of 
southern towns these proud towers pricked the sky, and 
symbolized the domination of a patriciate of nobles; there 
were 1,500 of them at Florence, 300 at Milan, and legend 
asserted that Pisa boasted no less than 10,000. Grouped 
‘into military associations (societdé d’armt), these nobles, who 
cared for nothing but their interests as landed proprietors 
and their family feuds, disturbed the life of the commune 
by their street fights, and oppressed the working classes with 
a heavy tyranny. Sometimes, however, in commercial towns 
such as Venice and Genoa, the patricians, whose fortune was 
founded upon trade, governed with moderation and wisdom. 

205 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Elsewhere, notably in Castile, the class of gentry allied 
with the rich bourgeoisie and shared social and _ political 
influence with it. In Germany the patriciate of nobles 
amalgamated with the class of great burgesses. In Northern 
France and the Low Countries it was absorbed, or more 
often eliminated, sometimes by intermarriage, sometimes by 
severe measures against the feudatories. In the greater part 
of the West, however, the patriciate identified itself with 
the haute bourgeoisie, an association composed of great 
men of business, organizers of transport, great industrial 
capitalists, shipowners, money-changers, and _ bankers, 
together with rich urban landholders and rentiers. This 
association, in which the mercantile and industrial aristo- 
cracy predominated, received a legal and official existence. 
It was usually called the gild, or hanse, sometimes the 
fraternity or confrérie. From an early period it was 
obviously oligarchical in character. In certain English towns 
it numbered barely 200 members, and at Ghent, in the 
thirteenth century, it comprised only the heads of thirty- 
nine families. The members of the burgess patriciate or gild 
called themselves the greater burgesses (majores, principes, 
optimates, proceres), or else the worthy folk (bons hommes, 
prud’hommes, honorés). They came to form veritable 
dynasties, such as the lignaiges of Northern France and the 
Low Countries, the paraiges of Metz, the geschlechter of 
Germany, the honrats of Catalonia. Their ranks could be 
entered only by right of birth or of fortune, and on condition 
of exercising no manual profession and paying high 
admission fees. Gilds, hanses, fraternities kept out small 
traders and all craftsmen. The patricians formed a close 
corporation, the members of which were united by a solemn 
oath and by community of interests. They submitted them- 
selves to a strict discipline, under the authority of their 
elected administrators, consuls, captains of the merchants, 
provosts, wardens, or échevins. These chiefs, such as the 
provost of the marchands de l’eau at Paris, the count of the 
hanse at Bruges, or the schildrag at Ypres, were assisted by 
councils of elders or prud’hommes, who numbered twenty- 
four at Paris, and twelve to twenty-four in the English gilds. 
The gild had its personnel of clerks and treasurers, recorders, 
sergeants or employés, its meeting-place (the gildhall or 

206 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


burgesses’ parlour), its financial resources, made up of the 
subscriptions of its members or other taxes, its treasury, its 
budget, which permitted it to make payments warranted by 
the common interest, its assemblies, in which its affairs were 
discussed and its rules drawn up, its feasts and banquets, 
which helped to strengthen-its solidarity. It secured recogni- 
tion for its immunities and economic and _ jurisdictional 
privileges. It had its courts, and sometimes its coats-of- 
arms. Thus the patriciate made the gild an instrument of 
its power. 

These burgesses, who formed so clearly marked a 
patriciate, profited by their ascendancy, their close union, 
the aptitude which they had already shown in directing the 
movement for emancipation, and the wealth which they 
had acquired, to arrogate to themselves the monopoly of 
government and economic supremacy in the urban commune. 
In a large number of cities they reduced the general assemblies 
or parliaments, which were the organs of the community, to 
a purely passive réle, and often they eliminated the smaller 
burgesses and the artisans from them. They seized control 
of the councils, the magistracies and the courts, and tended 
always to transform municipal offices into hereditary fiefs. 
The patricians proudly named themselves *‘ the lords of the 
town ’’; they wished to turn the “lordship ’’ of the urban 
state into a possession, a ‘‘ lordship,’’ reserved for their own 
caste. Sometimes, as at Venice, they managed to associate 
the fortunes of other classes with that of the patricians. If 
in most towns they showed little adaptability, at least they 
had almost everywhere a real sense of the grandeur and 
general interests of the municipal state. They energetically 
maintained urban independence against the assaults of 
princes, feudatories, and the Church. They were animated 
by an ardent patriotism, and they gave the communes a high 
place in the feudal world. Their external policy was inspired 
by the determination to secure the economic preponderance 
of the town which they represented. It was often they who 
founded the power of the city. These patricians possessed 
in innumerable ways a profound grasp of realities. They 
emancipated the towns from the fetters of feudalism, and 
organized a remarkable system of administrative, fiscal, and 
military institutions and magistrates. 

207 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


They knew how to govern. Their despotic activity 
multiplied works of public utility, commercial and in- 
dustrial enterprises, roads, canals, docks, market-halls, 
ports, works of defence or of adornment, schools, hospitals, 
orphanages. In England the gilds created as many as 460 
charitable institutions. Everywhere they favoured the 
intellectual and artistic development of the towns. They 
helped to enrich the urban communes, and prepared the way 
for the triumph of the lay spirit. But these bourgeois 
patricians, superior to the feudal lords in the art of govern- 
ment, were their equal in arrogance and tyranny. They dis- 
played a caste spirit which was Just as exclusive, as proud, 
and as jealous as that of the noble class. They oppressed 
the working classes and dragged the towns into warlike 
adventures. Too often they pursued a- policy of ruinous 
magnificence, squandering the resources of the community, 
crushing the people beneath the weight of taxes, driving the 
towns to bankruptcy, and arousing explosions of revolution 
by their despotism. 

Their tyranny was yet more insupportable in the economic 
and social sphere. The patricians exacted a heavy payment 


for the services which they rendered in the development of - 


production and exchange by the monopolies and privileges 
which they arrogated to themselves. Gilds and hanses 
seized control of the export trade and of all the most 
lucrative forms of commerce, and reserved these for their 
members or for those to whom they were pleased to allow 
them. In England the gild even laid its hand upon the 
retail trade in certain articles, such as cloth and fells. In 
Florence the ‘‘art”’ of the Calimala alone possessed the right 
to import and sell foreign cloth. Every hanse had the 
monopoly of various means of transport or of trade; in one 
place it was river transport, in another the wool or cloth 
trade. Often the gild obtained the farm of weights and 
measures, sale by auction, tolls, brokerage, pilotage, and 
advertisement. It built offices, quays, and docks, and levied 
dues for its own advantage. Rarely did the patricians show 
sufficient sense to allow the masses to participate in the 
profits of their enterprises. On the contrary, they de- 
liberately sacrificed the interests of the small trader and the 
artisan to their own. 
208 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


Not only did they seek to exclude these lesser folk from 
public life, but they used the power which they had seized 
to bring the working classes into subjection. They forbade 
associations of artisans, and refused them the right of union 
and strike, under pain of banishment and death. They 
decreed the obligation of all to work. Patrician oligarchies 
are to be found making treaties with each other to secure the 
reciprocal extradition of artisans who were suspect. Masters 
of the town councils and of the magistracies, the patricians 
were able to regulate at will the hours of labour, the level of 
wages, the price of food, to submit trade and the crafts to a 
rigid discipline, and to promulgate or revise the statutes of 
the corporations. In those centres, more especially, in which 
the great industry appeared, great merchants and entrepre- 
neurs made use of their authority to regulate the conditions 
and administration of labour in such an arbitrary manner 
that they reduced the workers to complete slavery. 

The patrician oligarchs finally succeeded in exasperating 
the masses by their arrogance and the display of their wealth. 
In the northern towns the great burgesses were eager to call 
themselves esquires and damoiseauw; everywhere they 
assumed titles of honour. They sometimes surpassed the 
old landed aristocracy in pomp. ‘‘It is trade which now 
breeds wealth,’’ said a great tanner of Basle to his guest, 
the Emperor Rudolph of Habsburg. At the state entries of 
princes they were noted for their luxury, as was observed 
at Cologne in 1236, when the 1,800 leading burgesses of the 
town welcomed the betrothed of Frederick II. They gave 
their daughters larger dowries than the nobles were wont 
to give, and built themselves great stone houses, sometimes 
crowned with towers and battlements. Brunetto Latini 
admires their dwellings in France, ‘* great and spacious 
and painted, their fair chambers wherein they have joy and 
delight,’? with orchards spreading round them. They live 
nobly, says a satirist of Champagne, ‘‘ they wear kings’ 
robes, and keep goshawks and falcons and sparrowhawks.”’ 
Their wives were like queens in their sumptuous attire, as 
Jeanne of Navarre, Queen of Philippe le Bel, remarked, not 
without vexation, at the sight of the 600 bourgeois ladies of 
Bruges. They kept an abundant table, and their enormous 
meals were washed down with priceless wines, while their 

209 bd 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


silver plate was displayed on their tables in all its 
magnificence. They aped the nobility, and were fain to 
flaunt themselves at tourneys, even as they flaunted at feasts 
and processions. The spectacle of this luxurious life was a 
real source of provocation to the masses, on whom the 
despotism of the patriciate weighed heavily, and was 
aggravated by their insolent disdain and by their assaults 
upon the honour and dignity of the common people. Thus 
they aroused against themselves the hatred of powerful 
associations, free crafts or corporations, the formation and 
development of which they were unable to prevent. 

The small traders, the small masters, and the workmen 
had already, with the permission of the Church, formed 
associations for piety and mutual assistance called fraternities 
or charities, side by side with which professional or trade 
groups (ministeriales) had been formed by the consent of the 
seigniorial authority, particularly among the industries which 
catered for primary necessities. This had been taking place 
at Paris, Chartres, Etampes, Pontoise, Douai, Saint-Trond, 
Bale, Strasburg, and Coblenz from the eleventh century and 
the first half of the twelfth century. In rare cases the old 
Roman and Byzantine corporations, such as the scholz of 
Rome and Ravenna, had survived. But these primitive 
unions, subjected to a close supervision and enjoying only 
a few privileges or monopolies, were not very strong. In the 
communal revolution their rédle was only that of a sort of 
make-weight. 

The general emancipation, of which the masses took 
advantage to acquire civil and economic liberty, was 
favourable to the spread of the movement of association 
among the working classes. Its progress was so rapid that it 
soon became the normal framework in which work was 
carried on. It took two forms, that of the free craft, and 
that of the sworn corporation. The former prevailed in the 
majority of Western towns, where the old and new authorities 
resigned themselves to accept organizations which were less 
dangerous to their predominance than were the corporations. 
The free craft, enjoying a monopoly of sale and production, 
and guaranteeing professional obligations which were in con- 
formity with the general interests, grouped together the great 
mass of the small traders and artisans. It gave its members 

210 


ail 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


the love of honest and independent work, but if it secured 
them the benefit of professional liberty and dignity, it did 
not set itself up as a privileged body in opposition to the 
governing classes. The latter preserved rights of police and 
jurisdiction, and exercised full political authority over the 
free crafts. : | 

Little by little, in spite of the suspicion and resistance of 
the sovereign power, whether king, church, feudal lord, or 
bourgeois patriciate, the mass of the people began to organize 
other groups, sworn corporations, which were joined by the 
most powerful or active minorities. These exercised a 
political, economic, and social activity which was far more 
profound than that of the free crafts. Their number grew in 
proportion as the labour of the masses became the prepon- 
derant element in the prosperity of the towns. Sometimes in 
virtue of a decision brought about by the interests of the city 
or of the governing class, sometimes as a result of the pressing 
demands of a group of workers, the free crafts and even the 
dependent crafts became transformed into sworn associa- 
tions. These corporations—known under various names as 
fraternités, confréries, frairies, métiers jurés, scuole, paratica, 
arti, mestiert, gremios, ziinfte, craft gilds, some made up of 
single unions, others (arti, ziinfte) of federations of unions, - 
such as the Arte della Lana di Calimala, multiplied through- 
out the West between the middle of the twelfth and the middle 
of the fourteenth centuries. At the beginning of this last 
century Venice possessed 58 of them ; Mantua, 21; Genoa, 33 ; 
Bologna, 20; Bergamo, 18; Parma, 24; Padua, 36; Pavia, 25; 
Florence, 21. Paris, which, about 1180, had only a dozen, 
possessed 100 at the time of St. Louis. Amiens numbered 
26 at the beginning of the fourteenth century; Poitiers, 18 ; 
Cologne, 26; Treier, 20; Magdeburg, 12; Frankfort-on-Main, 
14; Strasburg, 15. The average number in most German 
towns ranged from 12 to 15. Sworn corporations were 
organized rather late in those regions in which the patriciate 
was dominant, for example, in the Low Countries. The 
trade union succeeded in setting itself up as a privileged 
body most easily among the food, building, and clothing 
industries, the trades of primary necessity. 

Often also, however, aristocratic professions, in which 
brain work dominated manual labour, such as those of the 

211 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


notaries, physicians, apothecaries, and goldsmiths, formed 
themselves into corporations at an early date, and were, 
indeed, among the most renowned. Such was the case with 
the arti maggiori at Florence. At other times it was the 
trades whose members had been able to impose themselves 
upon the consideration of the public by their more rapid 
acquisition of wealth, such as the bankers, money-changers, 
and great manufacturers, who took advantage of their 
plutocratic prestige to organize themselves into similarly 
privileged associations. Finally, a number of trades, such as 
baking, when they ceased to be carried on as family and 
domestic industries, often succeeded in their turn in enter- 
ing the ranks of corporations. 

The free crafts and sworn corporations, unions under 
common law and privileged unions, into which the com- 
mercial and industrial classes were grouped, exercised a 
powerful influence upon the organization of the labouring 
masses. They taught them solidarity and discipline, under 
the direction of freely chosen leaders and beneath the rule 
of statutes and regulations drawn up by themselves and 
amended by the urban community. They gave them a 
powerful hierarchy, founded upon professional capacity, and 
assured them the independence and dignity of labour. They 
it was who enabled the worker to enjoy the fruits of his toil 
by working for the suppression or limitation of ancient 
seigniorial rights, and by guaranteeing the economic equality 
of their members. Both in the free craft and in the corpora- 
tion access to mastership and the right of exercising a trade 
was permitted to all who were able to offer guarantees of 
morality and technical skill. In order to set up as a master 
in this golden era of the Middle Ages, it sufficed to have 
served an apprenticeship, to undergo an examination (the so- 
called masterpiece) which was then both simple and practical, 
or even to furnish a simple attestation of capacity according 
to public repute, to pay moderate entry fees, and to 
bear the cost of a not very expensive dinner or feast; 
often, indeed, the aspirant had to pay no fee and had no 
expenses. 

Between the workman, who was called the journeyman, 
and the master there was no other difference than that which 
was brought about by a slight and often temporary inequality 

212 


a ol 
, ea 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


of fortune or position. Both had received the same profes- 
sional training. The workman could become a master on the 
day upon which he married a master’s daughter, and at any 
time when he had collected the small amount of capital 
necessary for him to set up on his own account. The journey- 
man was free to work as he liked; he was bound only by a. 
contract of limited duration, furnished with definite guaran- 
tees and stipulating reciprocal obligations. Master and 
journeyman lived together in daily comradeship. The 
journeyman had his place in the trade, he shared in the 
choice of officials, and in the fraternity he found moral and 
material assistance. His individuality was recognized and 
protected by the free or sworn association of which he 
formed part. In it he found a support and not an obstacle, 
and his personality became freer and more respected, inas- 
much as he was a part of it. The craft assured the future 
master and workman alike the benefit of a professional 
education, an apprenticeship of varying length (two to eight 
years) according to the difficulties of each profession, but 
serious and effective. The apprentice found in the master a 
rough and stern teacher, who gave him a careful and virile 
education, and one of such high value that the working 
classes have never at any period had a better technical pre- 
paration for the fulfilment of their function. 

Masters, journeymen, and apprentices formed autonomous 
groups, administering themselves freely, and imposing upon 
themselves the economic and social discipline necessary to 
secure their power and prestige. By the practice of self- 
government they accustomed themselves to the habit of 
liberty, the sense of responsibility, and the civic virtues. 
The sworn corporations, and even sometimes the free crafts, 
had their assemblies, parliaments, or chapters, in which the 
masters, and sometimes the workmen, deliberated, the latter 
having more or less restricted rights therein. They made 
statutes concerning common affairs, elected administrators, 
and controlled their actions. These administrators—jurés, 
prud’hommes, baillis, wardens, rewards, gardes, esgardeurs, 
veedores, majorats, consuls, rectors, podestats, vicars, doges, 
as they were called in different places—sometimes had at their 
head a president—the prior, proconsul, master, mayeur de 
banniére, capmeister ; they made police regulations, managed 

213 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the finances and the courts of the association, with the 
assistance of councillors, syndics, treasurers, auditors of 
accounts, agents, clerks or secretaries, apparitors or esquires, 
sergeants and messengers. They visited the workshops and 
markets, imposed penalties and fines, administered the 
master’s oath, and presided at ceremonies and feasts. They 
were elected annually, and they exercised their power in 
the interest of the whole body, of which they were the 
mandatories. 

The association was a juridical personality, which could 
sue in a court of justice, possess movable and immovable 
property, rents, meeting-places (halls, mansions, steuben, 
scuole, parloirs), sometimes even shops and _ industrial 
establishments. It had its own recognized and respected 
place in the urban commune. In the Church it built its own 
chapel, which it adorned lovingly, and in which, as at 
Chartres and at Bourges, stained windows displayed the 
insignia of the craft. It had its title-deeds preserved in its 
archives, its seal, its armorial bearings, even as the lord and 
the commune had them. It displayed its standard or banner, 
whereon might be seen the image of the patron saint of the 
corporation, together with the attributes of the craft, the 
carpenter’s axe, the shoemaker’s awl, the golden cup or cross 
or crown of the goldsmith, and the agnus Det, with red and 
yellow halo upon a field of blue, which was the mark of the 
clothworker. Labour thus by means of association pro- 
claimed and won its title to nobility. 

The urban workers, like the other social classes, won 
privileges for themselves. They succeeded in securing the 
recognition of their property in their craft. Just as the 
merchant was sovereign in his gild and the lord in his fief, 
so the master and the workman were rulers in their craft. 
They had a monopoly in it. At a time when free labour was 
organizing itself, it was useful that the sphere of activity of 
each professional speciality should be delimited in order to 
prevent any wastage of productive power, and to assure a 
secure existence to the producers. Moreover, the monopolies 
were far from being rigorous; if they guaranteed the 
privileged enjoyment of the local market to the small traders 
and artisans, they were modified by the co-existence of free 
and sworn crafts, by the survival of domestic industry, by 

214 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


the permission of foreign competition on certain days, and, 
finally, by the recognized power of the sovereign authority, 
royal, seigniorial, or municipal, to proclaim the freedom of 
labour. This last power was from time to time unhesitatingly 
used by kings, such as Philippe le Bel, and by communes, 
such as those of France and Italy. 

Monopoly gave rise to interminable lawsuits among the 
corporations, arising out of the difficulty of determining the 
sphere of activity of each. It brought to blows shoemakers 
and cobblers, lorimers and saddlers, bladesmiths and handle- 
makers, drapers and mercers, and many others. Such 
difficulties have arisen at all periods of history, and our 
modern patents give rise to fully as much litigation as grew 
out of the interpretation of the statutes of medieval corpora- 
tions. Moreover, monopoly did not check emulation at this 
period, when the corporation had not yet acquired the 
rigidity and spirit of routine which were to characterize it 
later. The rivalry of the towns obliged the crafts of each 
town to improve and to watch carefully over their work. 
In the matter of technical skill and finish, the work of the 
artisans of the Middle Ages can compare advantageously in 
many ways with that of modern workmen. 

Each craft, within the limits allowed it by seigniorial or 
municipal authority, concerned itself with the task of re- 
conciling the interests of producers and consumers. The 
rules of the corporation were not inspired merely by selfish 
preoccupations, but also by a high care for professional probity 
and for social equality and solidarity. The rules or statutes 
of the crafts repressed pitilessly all bad workmanship, fraud, 
scamped or dishonest work. By an elaborate system of 
inspection, control, and trademarks they guaranteed that 
manufacture and sale should take place in public, and that 
transactions should be honest. They did not, it is true, 
eradicate the spirit of fraud and all abuses, but they limited 
them. Similarly, they were at pains to safeguard the morals 
of the craft by keeping out doubtful and undesirable ele- 
ments, and by imposing the observation of the laws of 
morality, religion, and humanity upon the working classes. 
It was their object to maintain a sort of equality among 
masters by forbidding them to exercise more than one craft, 
to entice away each other’s workmen or customers, or to 

215 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


engage in the various manceuvres of monopoly and specula- 
tion, so that each might obtain the equitable and remunera- 
tive fruit of his labours. The regulations thus hindered the 
formation of large fortunes, but they made possible a fair 
division of profits. The workman himself found his right to 
work recognized; the master was obliged to give him a job, 
to employ him in preference to strangers or to the other 
masters of the town, and not to subject him to the competi- 
tion of cheap female labour. For the first time professional 
union founded voluntary discipline by its action, fixed 
the just hierarchy, rights and the duties of the working 
classes, and gave them, together with liberty, the con- 
sciousness of their dignity and_ responsibility. The 
world was enriched by a new social force of incomparable 
power. 

The free or sworn union, the craft or the corporation, were 
increasingly redoubtable fortresses, from whose shelter the 
masses set forth on the conquest of political power. The 
urban democracies were not slow to perceive that their civil 
liberties and their economic privileges were at the mercy of 
the selfishness and caprices of the sovereign power, king or 
lord or patriciate, which ruled the town. The wide privileges 
which had devolved upon this power permitted it to annihilate, 
restrict, or diminish the autonomy of the crafts and to assail 
their material interests. On the other hand, the workers also 
suffered from the oppressive, adventurous, and rash adminis- 
tration of the group of privileged persons who governed the - 
city. It was the masses who bore the chief burden of 
common obligations, who furnished the police, the watch 
and ward, and the medieval equivalent of the fire brigade; 
it was they who paid the heaviest taxes and were enrolled 
in the militia. With their labour, their money, and their 
blood they contributed to the power and vitality of those 
urban states, in whose government they were called upon to 
take only the smallest share. 

Thus from the thirteenth century a democratic movement, 
which often assumed a revolutionary character, began to 
appear with growing intensity among the crafts. Its object 
was to destroy the political monopoly of the patriciate of 
nobles ‘or gilds, and its programme was to obtain a share in 
or the monopoly of municipal authority. Its weapons were 

216 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


strikes (takehans), workmen’s unions, and, finally, armed 
risings. The movement spread to all the countries of the West. 
In France, from the second half of the thirteenth century, 
strikes, fomented by corporations or fraternities, broke out 
on all sides, especially in the industrial districts. In Beauvais 
in 1233 the mayor and the money-changers were insulted and 
ill-treated, and the king was obliged to imprison 1,500 rioters. 
At Provins and at Rouen (1280-1281) the workmen rose up 
against the merchant drapers, and the mayor of the Norman 
capital was murdered. At Paris, in 1295 and 1807, the atti- 
tude of the workers’ unions was so menacing that Philippe le 
Bel dissolved the fraternities. In Castile, Aragon and Cata- 
lonia, notably at Cordova and at Ubeda (13812-13382), the 
urban patriciate of nobles (caballeros) was faced with the 
tumultuous demands of the people. In France, as in Spain 
and in England, the royal power was strong enough to put 
an end to the abuses of the oligarchies, giving partial 
satisfaction to democratic aspirations, and re-establishing 
order beneath its own authority. It granted guarantees to 
the popular classes, favoured their ambitions by developing 
the sworn corporations, and (as at Amiens) opened the 
~ councils and municipal magistracies to them. 

The democratic revolution was far more vigorous in 
countries where the central power lacked the same means 
of action. In the Rhenish and Danubian districts of 
Germany, at Ulm, Frankfort, Nuremburg, Mainz, Cologne, 
Strasburg, and Basle there were fierce struggles in which the 
patriciate was finally obliged to abandon the town govern- 
ment to the corporations. In the Low Countries especially 
the movement assumed an extraordinary intensity. The 
** novre peuple,’’ the democracy of the crafts, or klawwaerts, 
as they were called, employed all sort of methods, coalitions, 
strikes or takehans, insurrections, alliances with the great 
feudal nobility, the counts of Flanders and Hainault, in 
order to break down the despotic power of the gilds or 
Leliaerts, who relied upon the support of the King of France. 
At Liége (1253) the crafts rose against the power of the 
provosts and the bishop. At Dinant (1255) the copper- 
workers, and at Huy (1299) the weavers, were at grips with 
the gilds of merchant entrepreneurs. At Tournai (1281) and 
all over Hainault (1292) the weavers and other artisans were 

217 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


struggling against the patricians. From 1275 Flanders was 
in open revolution; at Ghent, Bruges, and Douai the count 
was helping the craftsmen to sap the authority of the 
patriciate. Everywhere the struggle was accompanied by 


measures of implacable violence on both sides. The great — 


burgesses (majores), who loved to call themselves the 
** worthy folk ’’ (goden), as well as the artisans, whom they 
referred to as ‘‘ wretched canaille ’’ (minores, gwaden), made 
use of execution and of banishment. For nearly thirty years, 
between 1297 and 13828, a formidable wave of revolution 
broke over Flanders. The Flemish crafts, inspired by the 
spirit of democracy and by municipal patriotism, rose 
at Ypres, Douai, Ghent, Lille, Bruges, and Oudenarde, 
massacred the French at the so-called ‘* matins of Bruges ”’ 
in May, 1302, and won the brilliant victory of Courtrai on 
July 11, 1302 over all the chivalry of France. The weaver 
Conink defied the most powerful prince of Christendom, 
Philippe le Bel, and in spite of the revenge which he took 
at Mons-en-Pevéle (August 18th, 1804), the king was obliged 
to treat with the democracy of Flanders (1305). The revolu- 
tion was successful in winning its legitimate demands. In 
the Low Countries the monopoly of the patriciate was 
abolished ; the crafts secured the admission of their delegates 
and leaders into the councils and magistracies. They sup- 
pressed the abusive privileges of the gilds and decreed 
freedom of trade. They obtained full powers of economic 
administration. They were allowed to exercise rights of 


jurisdiction over their members, and wage labour was 


emancipated. They abolished the excessive penalties, such 
as death and banishment, which the patricians had imposed 
upon the workmen for professional faults, and which were 
now replaced by fines. They conferred upon the workers 
the right to buy raw material freely and to sell the produce 
of their labour directly to the public. For the workers in 
the great industry of Flanders, the conquest of political 
power was the instrument of their economic liberation. 
The revolution obtained nowhere else such remarkable 
results as in the Low Countries. In the South of France and 
in Italy, indeed, the movement was less successful in bring- 
ing about the triumph of the democracies of workers than 
in breaking the anarchical tyranny of the patriciate of nobles. 
218 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


There the small folk (minutus populus, mediocres, minores) 
allied with the rich burgesses of the great corporations, some- 
times even, as in Provence, with the clergy, against the 
insolent domination of the feudal lords of the towns. The 
craft unions (arti) and the fraternities had recourse to every 
possible weapon, to secret agreements, trade strikes, even 
the general strike (as at Bologna), conspiracies, street fights, 
everything in order to seize political power. Everywhere the 
popolant formed themselves into militias with their 
** captains of the people,’’? and united under the direction 
of chiefs, ‘* priors’? and ‘‘ elders ”’ of the crafts (arti) so as 
to oust the nobles from the government, the councils, and the 
magistracies. Milan and Brescia (1200-1286), Reggio, Pistoia, 
Pisa (1254), Genoa (1257-1270), Siena and Arezzo (1288), and, 
above all, Bologna (1257-1271), and Florence (1250-1293) were 
the chief scenes of these dramatic struggles, from which the 
patriciate of nobles emerged beaten, decimated by proscrip- 
tion and massacres, and ruined by confiscations. The 
victorious coalition of bourgeoisie and democracy closed the 
councils and offices to them, and made the exercise of a craft 
the condition of admission to political rights. It handed over 
executive authority to the captains of the people or gonfa- 
loniers, leaders of the popular militia, and the councils to the 
priors and rectors of the crafts. Government and assemblies 
were placed under the influence of the mass of the population, 
but, in general, the concession of political rights stopped with 
the arti minort. The common people, the wage-earners, re- 
mained outside the civic body. 

In the South of France the revolution was analogous in 
character, and was no more profitable to the lowest rank of 
the democracy. At Marseilles (1213), Avignon (1225), Arles 
(1225), Nimes (1272), Carcassonne (1226), and Montpellier 
(1246), the crafts sueceeded—sometimes by risings—in winning 
a partial entry into the councils and parliaments ; sometimes 
even in forcing their way into the magistracies. Nowhere, 
except in the Low Countries, did the common people, who 
were then indeed quite incapable of the duties of public 
life, benefit by the conquest or partition of municipal power, 
brought about by the energy of the urban democracies. But 
for the mass of the working classes that victory was the 
natural and legitimate complement of the effort which they 

219 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


had made to organize themselves and of the part which they 
had played in bringing about the prosperity of the urban 
economy. | 

The emancipation of the commercial and industrial 
classes, as well as their growing participation in public life, 
brought about a great improvement in their condition. 
Master of his own person and activity, the urban worker, 
master or journeyman, could exercise his initiative and 
energy in whatever direction he liked. In the tutelary 
shelter of the free craft, the sworn corporation, and the 
municipal regulations, he won at one and the same time 
freedom and security of labour. Only a minority, made up 
of wage-earners in the nascent great industry, found itself 
deprived of the benefits of this organization. In Flanders, 
Tuscany, and the North of France, and everywhere where 
great entrepreneurs were becoming the distributors and 
regulators of work, they submitted the journeymen and the 
small masters whom they employed to the iron law of the 
wage slave. They distributed orders and raw materials as 
they liked, they were the sole buyers and sellers of manu- 
factured goods, and they imposed arbitrary conditions and 
tyrannical rules on masters and workmen alike. By a 
cleverly calculated system of advances they led them into 
debt, the better to keep them in dependence; they paid 
them only famine wages, and sometimes even paid them in 
kind according to arbitrary valuations, by what was after- 
wards known as the truck system. 

Fortunately, the wage-earners of the great industry 
formed a not very numerous proletariat in the West. The 
great mass of workers found in the conditions of the ‘* small ” 
industry, in the craft and its body of organized artisans, a 
stronghold of independence, and a guarantee of well-being. 
Voluntary and disciplined association made them strong 
enough to be out of reach of the caprices and despotism of 


the old feudal powers. It preserved them from excessive. 


competition, unemployment, and over-production, from 

parasitic middlemen, from the manceuvres of speculators 

and exploiters of labour. Masters and workmen could labour 

without taking heed for the morrow, sure of finding in the 

little workshop exercise for their well-regulated activity, 

and in the urban market a sale for their produce. The 
220 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


statutes of the crafts made mastership accessible to all, and 
established a happy equilibrium between the rights and 
duties of everyone. They maintained a certain equality in 
production and in distribution; they prevented the forma- 
tion of large fortunes by masters, and favoured the wide 
diffusion of a standard of comfort. The workman was 
- sure to find employment when he betook himself to the 
market-place to hire out his labour, either by the day or the 
week, or for a longer term. He had not to fear the over- 
crowding of the trade by the competition of foreigners and 
women. It is true that the work was hard, and that the 
working day varied in some trades—for example, in Paris— 
from 16 hours to 8} hours; in others, from 14 to 11 hours. 
But in practice, deducting intervals for meals, it was usually 
from 8 to 13 hours; night work was, in general, forbidden, 
and paid extra when it was allowed; and numerous feast 
days provided the artisan with intervals of rest, which 
together amounted to at least a quarter of the year. 
Wages were not subject to sudden fluctuations, and 
corresponded fairly exactly with the cost of living. Those 
of the journeymen were not sensibly less than the earnings 
of their masters. In London, for instance, in the fourteenth 
century, when the master tiler made according to the season 
54d. to 44d. a day, the journeyman received 33d. to 8d. In 
France, at the end of the thirteenth century, the master 
mason or the master slater received for his day’s work about 
the same sum as his successor at the beginning of the 
fourteenth century—to wit, 2 fr. a day and his assistant 
50 c. At Strasburg the master carpenter earned 2 fr. 60 
without board in summer. In general, the wages of 
apprentices and of women were two-thirds less than those 
of the masters. These wages sufficed to purchase the 
material necessities of life. It has been calculated that in 
the towns of the North of France a year’s real wages re- 
presented a purchasing power equal to 19 to 30 hectolitres 
of corn, and that the daily wage would have allowed for the 
purchase of 1 kg. 9 of beef, or 1 kg. 7 of bacon, or 2°8 litres 
to 6 litres of wine. Artisans, in the thirteenth century, could 
buy 1 hectolitre of peas for 4 fr. 50 to 11 fr. 42, a sheep 
for 8 fr. to 4 fr. 50, a pig for 6 fr. to 12 fr., a chicken for 
82 c. to 50 c., a dozen eggs for 11 c. to 12 c., a kilogramme 
221 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


of butter for 43 c. to 65 c., and a hectolitre of wine for 5 to 
15 fr. Moreover, the unmarried workman and apprentice 
were usually boarded and lodged by their master. 

The material life of the working classes during this period 
of the Middle Ages seems to have been comfortable. It was 
simple and usually removed from the temptations of luxury. 
They were ordinarily content with simple food—vegetables, 
beans, dough-cakes, bread and soup, and a reasonable pro- 
portion of meat. They reserved their great carouses and their 
big bumpers of wine and beer for feast days and meetings. 
They were not very particular about housing. In France 
they were crowded together in houses of wood or clay, with 
pointed gables and slate-covered fronts, the projecting upper 
stories of which overhung the road and almost met one 
another across it. On the ground floor the masters had their 
workshops, serving at the same time as workrooms and 
shops. Usually they all lived together with other members 
of their trade in the same quarter, and each road bore the 
name of a corporation. There, during the hours of work and 
sale the customers moved, all along the dark and narrow 
alleys, among the stalls protected by penthouses, above 
which hung creaking signboards. Pedestrians, horses and 
carts jostled domestic animals, especially pigs, running about 
amid heaps of filth. The cries of each trade might then be 
heard in all their original zest, from that of the taverner or 
the cook with sauces to sell to that of the basketmender and 
the old clothes man. 

Families lived often in the most primitive simplicity in a 
few rooms barely furnished with chests, tables, and various 
utensils. The clothing of the workman and small master was 
made of strong woollen or linen cloth, and cost him little. 
Nevertheless, little by little the growing standard of ease 
aroused a taste for comfort. Inventories belonging to the 
end of the thirteenth and first half of the fourteenth century, 
and surviving tax assessments, show that modest fortunes 
were being made, and that the working classes of the towns 
were at some pains to obtain substantial food, more elaborate 
furniture, including pewter vessels, table linen, and garments 
made of more varied and less coarse stuffs. The use of 
body linen became general. Hygiene had made great 
progress, as is shown by the numerous bathing establish- 

222 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


ments or public stews, and the existence of bath-tubs in 
private houses. 

The moral condition of the working classes had also 
improved greatly. They were, no doubt, coarse and brutal, 
moved by a gross and rude sensuality. They loved the 
tavern, gaming, and carousing. They were reproached with 
their grumbling temper, and sometimes with insolence, lazi- 
ness, or dishonesty. ‘They were frequently licentious, and 
sexual morality was low. But taking everything together 
an immense progress had been made. Masters and work- 
men had acquired the virtues of freedom. They were 
passionately in love with independence, imbued with the 
spirit of equality and of justice. Their common organization 
in the crafts, no less than the simplicity of the material con- 
ditions of existence, brought them close together. In general, 
neither capitalists nor proletarians were to be found among 
them. In those days harmony reigned within the world of 
labour, which had no other enemies than the feudal powers 
and the patriciate. Artisans were conscious of their in- 
dividuality and of their value as workmen; they had the new 
sentiment of the dignity of labour. At no period have there 
been so many clever masters of technique, indeed so many 
real artists. Legions of master-workers, image-makers, or 
sculptors, painters, miniaturists, ivory-workers, potters, 
embroiderers, wood-carvers, enamellers, goldsmiths, and 
armourers raised labour to the level of an art. The statutes 
of the corporations contributed to the creation and main- 
tenance of a tradition of honesty and loyalty. 

Intellectual curiosity awoke among these ignorant masses. 
The artisan willingly sent his children to the universities and 
schools, and already there was beginning to be heard the 
eternal plaint of the upper classes concerning the danger of 
popular education and the peril of taking people out of their 
class. A whole literature was created in order to satisfy 
these intellectual aspirations of the townspeople, epics and 
romantic tales declaimed by jongleurs and street-singers, 
pious mystery plays and gay comedies or soties, the satirical 
couplets of the fabliaua, ballads and sentimental or mocking 
songs. The townsfolk loved fétes, state entries, processions, 
masquerades, and the magnificent shows afforded by jousts 
and tourneys. Crafts and corporations took their share in 

2238 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the pomp of public ceremonies, with their dignitaries clad in 
brilliant liveries, their banners and the insignia of their 
trades. The workers possessed in the highest degree the 
spirit of brotherhood and of charity, which was enshrined 
in their fraternities or amitiés, their hospitals, and their 
organization of help for the sick and for widows and orphans. 
The same solidarity was manifested in the coalitions which 
they formed to defend their interests and demand their 
rights. They were animated by a naive and sometimes 
mystical faith, which led them to regard the Church as the 
people’s house; and so they adorned it with chapels, fair 
windows, paintings, and sculptures. They had their patron 
saints there, celebrated their fétes there, and sometimes per- 
formed their plays there. Occasionally their religious sense 
exalted them and drove them to the bold dreams of heretics— 
Vaudois, Fraticelli, and Lollards—who advocated a radical 
transformation of the whole social order, under the guise of a 
religious revolution. 

A few centuries of freedom and prosperity sufficed to bring 
this new world to birth in the Western towns. For the first 
time labour took a leading place in society, and made its 
power recognized. The rehabilitated merchants and artisans, 
escaping from the prison of serfdom, had become freemen. 
Better still, they had set themselves up as equals of the 
landed proprietor, the knight, and the clerk. In the proud 
and wealthy bourgeoisie, in the independent people grouped 
in their associations, a new power was manifest, rivalling 
that of feudalism and the Church. This power was founded 
upon the high social and economic value of the worker, who, 
up till then, had been largely despised by the old aristocratic 
societies of antiquity, as well as by the military and agrarian 
society of the Dark Ages and the first feudal period. Not 
only had the working masses succeeded in the conquest of 
civil and political liberties, but they had also, by the volun- 
tary discipline which they had imposed upon themselves in 
their associations, created a tradition of the honesty and 
dignity of labour. They had given an incomparable impetus 
to all the forces of production and for the greater number 
of their members they had won stability, security, in- 
dependence, and comfort. Out of the erstwhile oppressed 
and despised serf they had made the free, honoured, and 

224 


PLATE IV 


MAY DAY IN A FLEMISH TOWN 
(Early 16th Century) 


[face p. 224 


CONDITION OF WORKING CLASSES 


respected artisan of the new world. Urban civilization, born 
of their efforts, meant, finally, an irresistible ferment of 
change in the old agrarian civilization, and it was by their 
example that the rural classes in their turn were to conquer 
the position which was theirs by right. 


225 Q 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ADVANCE OF COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND 
THE PROGRESS OF RURAL POPULATION IN THE WEST FROM THE 
ELEVENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES. 


BETWEEN the eleventh and the middle of the fourteenth 
century the agrarian populations of the West had, indeed, 
accomplished a magnificent work, which justified their 
emancipation. The great business of colonizing Europe, 
sketched out in the Carolingian period, was taken up again 
and achieved by them in a century and a half. Production 
developed enormously, and the West was repopulated. At 
no other period of history has so great an enterprise been 
conceived and brought to so full and successful a realization, 
save, perhaps, in our own day, in which the conquest of new 
worlds by European civilization has been begun. It was one 
of the capital events of history, although historians have 
commonly passed it by in silence. 

At the close of the Dark Ages, by reason of the recent 
invasions, the constant anarchy and warfare, the insufficiency 
and inertia of labour, and the predominance of a primitive 
form of economy, the greater part of the soil of the West 
was under forest, waste, or marsh. In Italy, save for the 
two Sicilies, and in Christian Spain, only a very small 
proportion of the land was under cultivation. Half or more 
of the territory of France, two-thirds of that of the Low 
Countries and Germany, and four-fifths of that of England 
was uncultivated. It needed the social and economic revolu- 
tion brought about by the rise of commerce and industry 
to shake the rural world of the West out of its torpor. The 
needs of consumption and trade gave rise to an impulse of 
reclamation which imposed itself upon all the landowning 
classes, who desired to keep up their revenues, as well as 
upon the agricultural classes, who were stimulated by the 
hope of ameliorating their lot by labour. All the élite of 
society placed itself at the head of the movement. The 
Church, in particular, held colonization to be a work of piety, 
which increased both her influence and her fortune. She 

226 


COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURE 


blessed it, she forbade men to disturb it, and she often 
herself took the initiative in it. The French monastic Orders 
deserved well of civilization for the success with which they 
pursued this peaceful crusade. The 2,000 Cluniac priories, 
the 8,200 Cistercian abbeys, the countless monasteries of 
Carthusians, Premonstratensians, and Trappists were rally- 
ing points for the thousands of pioneers who cleared, re- 
claimed, and drained the soil of the West. On their side, 
too, the rulers of feudal and monarchical states, such as the 
kings of England, Castile, Aragon, and the two Sicilies, 
the Swabian emperors, the Capetian kings of France, the 
counts of Flanders, and the German margraves, often 
stimulated the work of reclamation. The urban communes, 
in their turn, favoured the work and sometimes even made 
it obligatory, and rich burgesses sank their capital in it, 
particularly in the Low Countries. Finally, the rural masses 
furnished the necessary labour—thousands of pioneers 
(hétes, advenx, sartores), without whom the enterprise 
which made the fortune of medieval Europe would have 
been impossible. 

An immense programme was thus quietly carried out for 
the defence of the land from the ravages of the fierce waters, 
for the conquest of littorals, river valleys, and marshes, and 
for the clearance of heaths and forests. In England the 
drainage of the fens on the shores of the North Sea was 
begun. In the Low Countries the sea had stolen a fifth or a 
sixth of its soil from the Netherlands, and between the 
eleventh and the thirteenth century, it had on no less than 
thirty-five occasions swept over the land, creating the gulfs of 
the Zuyder Zee, the Dollart, and the Hondt (Western 
Scheldt), destroying in a single invasion 8,000 square kilo- 
metres, and in a hundred years swallowing up more than 
100,000 human beings. Now abbeys, princes, burgesses, and 
peasants formed themselves into associations for dyking and 
draining the land (wateringues), under the direction of dyke- 
masters (djik and mergrafen), At acost of seven and a half 
milliards of francs, and in the course of five centuries, they 
built out of solid blocks transported from Scandinavia and 
Central Germany the strong ‘*‘ golden wall,’’ which braved the 
furious assaults of the sea from maritime Flanders to Frisia, 
and in the shelter of which the fertile polders were reclaimed. 

227 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


North of the Meuse alone 19,000 hectares of land were thus 
conquered. Engineers (zandgrafen) arrested the advance of 
the dunes by means of osier plantations. Drainage canals 
and pumping machines kept up by the wateringues drove 
sea and river from whole districts, and in their place 
flourished rich farms (schorren), in which pasture and 
harvest, cattle and sheep prospered alike, together with a 
mass of cornlands (granges), formed of rectangular fields, 
the limits of which were marked by crosses. Half the Nether- 
lands and a third of Belgium thus rose from the bosom of 
the waters and the marshes. 

In Low Germany, Frisians, together with Flemings and 
Saxons, built up a similar rampart of dykes against the 
North Sea floods, which had chiselled out the Gulf of Jahde 
and carried away over 6,000 square kilometres of coastland 
between the Texel and the Cimbrian Peninsula. They con- 
verted into fertile agricultural land (koge, marschen) the 
mooren or marshy and inundated lands of Schleswig, Hol- 
stein, and the Bréme country. Between the Elbe and the 
Oder they transformed the inland marshes into great domains 
(kénigshufen) lying in parallel bands along the March of 
Brandenburg. In the thirteenth century, with the help of 
German settlers, they created in the flooded districts of the 
Lower Vistula and Prussia those magnificent alluvial 
ploughlands which are their pride, the werder of Marien- 
burg, Elbing, and Dantzig. In France a similar work was 
accomplished by the monastic Orders, such as the Templars 
and Cistercians, and also by unions of peasants. Thus were 
drained and conquered the low-lying and marshy lands of 
Saint-Omer and of Calaisis, the moliéres (wet lands) of Bas- 
Champs and of Marquenterre in Picardy, the swamps of the 
Caux country, the estuary of the Seine, Dive, Bas-Cotentin, 
the Dol country, part of the Breton littoral and of the Lower 
Loire, Bas-Poitou, Bas-Languedoc and Basse-Provence, and 
in the interior those of Basse-Auvergne, Limagne, ‘‘ wet ”’ 
Champagne, and Argonne. The Lower Rhone was dyked by 
associations of levadiers, and in the Poitevin marshes were 
built the long lines of bots (dykes), with their network of 
sluices and canals. In Bas-Roussillon in the thirteenth 
century a large number of swamps were drained. 

In Upper Italy communes, princes, Cistercian abbeys, and 

228 


COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURE 


peasants united to build embankments and regulate the course 
of the Po, the Lambro, the Mincio, the Brenta, to drain 
the marshes round Mantua, Ferrara, Cremona, Lodigiano, 
Milan, Montferrat, Bologna, and the country round Ravenna. 
The peoples of Spain and of the Italian peninsula, taking up 
again the methods of Roman hydraulic science, and imitating 
those of the Arabs, profited marvellously by irrigation in 
Cerdagne, Roussillon, Catalonia, Aragon, Castile, the 
Balearic Isles, the land of Valencia, the kingdom of Murcia 
and Andalusia, as well as the Lombard plain, Tuscany, and 
Sicily. The most remarkable of these works were the dams 
and reservoirs of Eastern Spain and the famous Lombard 
Naviglio Grande, built between 1179 and 1257. The latter 
carried the waters of Lake Maggiore over 35,000 hectares and 
fertilized the lands on the banks of the Oglio, the Adda, and 
the Po. 

Even more considerable results were obtained by the 
magnificent and determined work of clearance accomplished 
throughout the West during three centuries and a half, at 
the expense of heath and forest. At no period has the 
conquest of agricultural land been carried on with so much 
discipline and ardour. Lured on by the bait of freedom and 
property, thousands of pioneers responded to the appeal of 
monks, prelates, princes, lords, and communes, and came to 
prepare the way for the work of plough and hoe, by burning 
away brushwood, thickets, and parasitic vegetation, clearing 
forests with the axe, and uprooting trunks with the pick, a 
process known as assarting. The whole face of the West 
changed. Germany, in particular, was transformed. In its 
immense forests, through some of which an eleventh-century 
missionary could ride for five days on end in complete 
solitude, pioneers made clearings (roden) and _ assarts 
(schwenden), established great farms all along the side of 
the roads or on the edge of the woods (waldhufen), as in 
Austria, Silesia, and Moravia; or, again, as in the northern 
plain and on the southern plateaux, they established town 
and village settlements. From the shores of the Baltic and 
the North Sea to the Central Alps, from the Vistula to the 
Rhine and the Vosges, across the forests and wastes of 
Northern, Central, and Western Germany, Austria, Switzer- 
land, and Alsace, a multitude of new agrarian estates 

229 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


appeared. Geographical terminology, with its reut, rode, 
wald, heim, loh, holz, hagen, brand, schwend, bears witness 
to their importance and to their wide diffusion. German 
agriculture dates, indeed, from this fine period. 

The same is true of England, where reclamation by 
monastery, prince, and peasant performed a similar master- 
piece between the eleventh and the fourteenth centuries. 
The woods were attacked with such vigour, especially in the 
south, the south-east, and the midlands, that nothing was 
left of the ancient forest which once covered the soil of 
Britain, save a few rare remnants. From having been one 
of the most thickly wooded regions of the West, Great 
Britain became, like the Low Countries, one of the clearest, 
as a result of the work of the pioneers. The enormous 
number of names of towns and villages which end with the 
suffixes den, holt, word, falt, hurst, shows how potent was 
their labour. This work attained the highest degree of 
efficacy in the Low Countries. The wastines or wastes, the 
velden or heaths, the immense forests which still covered 
more than three-quarters of this region, disappeared in the 
Netherlands, Brabant, Hainault, and, above all, in Flanders, 
and were replaced by ploughlands and meadows surrounded 
by drainage ditches, hedges, and lines of trees. Ninety-five 
per cent. of Flemish villages date from this time; everywhere 
the suffixes sart, rode, kerche attached to their names indi- 
cate the work accomplished long ago, by means of which a 
plain of marshy forests and heaths became the fairest agri- 
cultural country of the West. 

In France, Cistercians, Premonstratensians, Carthiaane 
and Templars, together with the wisest of the feudatories, 
and supported by a whole multitude of peasants, trans- 
formed into hayfields, meadows, and ploughlands provinces 
hitherto covered with great forests, such as Artois, Picardy, 
Ponthieu, the Ile-de-France, Normandy, ‘‘ wet ’? Champagne, 
Morvan, Upper Burgundy, the Meuse and Vosges districts, 
Brittany, Poitou, the Loire districts, Aquitaine, and the 
south-east. An immense work of clearance was carried on 
for three centuries, and gave the French countryside its 
present appearance. In Christian Spain, so backward in 
comparison with Moslem Spain, an intensive colonization, 
the agents of which were the monks and the princes, assisted 

230 


COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURE 


by a crowd of immigrants of French origin and of peoples 
rescued from the Moslem yoke (the Mozarabs), brought to 
pass the disappearance of a large part of the undergrowth, 
the wastes (hermes, yermos), and the abandoned lands 
(despoblados) of Roussillon, Cerdagne, Catalonia, Lower 
Aragon, Galicia and the Castiles, Navarre and the Vascon- 
gades. The Catalan peasants were particularly remarkable 
for the tenacity of their struggle with an ungrateful soil, and, 
as the proverb ran, made bread out of stones. Finally, in 
Italy, not only in the two Sicilies, but in the northern and 
central districts, the forest fell before the axe of the pioneers. 
Uncultivated land was ploughed or irrigated, and at the end 
of the thirteenth century no one would have recognized this 
land covered with farms, vineyards, and plantations for the 
wooded and half-desert country of the end of the tenth. 

To this magnificent work of colonization, which is one 
of the glories of Western Christendom, and in which France, 
through her monastic Orders, her princely dynasties, and 
her emigrants, played the leading role, is due the economic 
hegemony of the Western lands, and the splendid develop- 
ment of their agricultural production, which was so fruitful 
in results. The West took up again and carried further the 
work of the Roman Empire. 

A tremendous access of activity was, indeed, manifest 
in all the domains of agricultural production. The people of 
the West strove to make the most of all sources of natural 
wealth in order to fulfil the growing needs of consumption. 

Side by side with the primitive fisheries along the 
sea coasts and the rivers, monks and great lords practised 
pisciculture in the interior by means of reservoirs and stew- 
ponds. Deep-sea fisheries arose and developed rapidly, to 
the profit of the Netherland sailors, the Flemings, and the 
English ; in the Baltic and the northern seas they fished for 
cod, stock-fish, mackerel, and, most important of all, herring, 
that essential food of the lower classes, while in the Channel 
and the Atlantic, Norman, Breton, Basque, and Galician 
fishermen pursued the whale, the salmon, the sardine, the 
lamprey and the dolphin. On the coasts of Picardy, Bas- 
Poitou, and Aunis the cultivation of oyster-beds and of 
mussels was organized. In the Western Mediterranean men 
fished for tunny fish and brought up coral and sponges. 

231 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


In spite of clearances, so many forests had been preserved 
in the majority of Western lands that the produce of the 
chase, reserved especially for the upper classes, still counted 
for a great deal in the general food supply. Careful regula- 
tions were made to protect these reserves against destruction, 
providing for the maintenance of woodland and coppice, the 
planting of trees and their felling at long intervals, and 
limiting the abuse of customary rights of pannage and 
pasture. A pitiless war was waged against wild beasts, and 
wolves now disappeared from certain countries, such as 
England. Germany, France, the eastern districts of the Low 
Countries, and Southern Italy were the parts of the West in 
which the wealth of the forests was best preserved. In the 
north they were exploited for ashes, potash, wax, wild honey, 
the skins of animals, and everywhere for fuel for the domestic 
hearth, the forges, and the glassworks, and also for timber. 
Timber rafts appeared, notably in the Low Countries and 
France; wood was despatched down the rivers to rural saw- 
mills and urban timber yards, while the naval dockyards 
received by sea or by river the wooden material which was 
indispensable for them. In the south the cultivation of 
cork-oaks was carried on. . 

A great impetus was given to cattle-farming. ‘‘ If your 
land is well furnished with live-stock,’’ wrote an Anglo- 
Norman agricultural writer in the thirteenth century, ‘°‘ it will 
return you thrice as much as if you confine yourself to agri- 
culture.’? Farmers were no longer content with the common 
pasture, in which pasture rights were stinted; they developed 
grasslands by irrigation, and hayfields, yielding an aftermath 
hitherto rare, began to be numerous. In the Low Countries 
the first fodder crops appeared. An empirical veterinary art 
arose, but it was powerless to prevent the terrible murrains 
of the period. The first experiments in the crossing and 
acclimatization of breeds were made at this time. Model 
farms were organized. Monastic Orders and rich burgesses 
began to put capital into cattle-rearing businesses and under- 
took contracts to fatten beasts or to convert land into 
meadows. The force of tradition, however, and the general 
lack of capital gave small live-stock still the first place in 
the rural economy. In certain Norman properties in 1307 
there were 900 to 1,500 sheep and 180 to 200 pigs, as com- 

282 


PLATE V 


PLOUGHING, SOWING AND HARROWING 
(Early 16th Century) 


face p. 232 


COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURE 


pared with 100 to 140 horned cattle and less than 100 horses. 
The pig was found everywhere, and goats were often kept. 
Common poultry was very abundant, and was increased by 
the acclimatization of the guinea fowl or Indian fowl in 
the thirteenth century. The peacock and the pheasant or 
Limoges cock are frequently to be met with. Bee-keeping, 
practised everywhere, rendered great services, for the honey 
took the place of sugar, and the wax served for lighting 
purposes. 

Sheep were the most valued of all the different kinds of 
smaller live-stock. A variety with particularly fine flesh, 
known as présalé (because fed upon the salt marshes), was 
already well known in the West of France. Sheep farms were 
created in all parts of the Low Countries, and Germany and 
France possessed millions of sheep, whose fleece was much 
sought after for the common or less fine sorts of cloth, and 
whose meat was valued for the people’s food. Spain and 
Southern Italy reared immense migratory flocks, which 
passed from hill pasture to plain pasture, and were valued 
for the same products. England, like Australia to-day, was 
a huge sheep-run, which furnished the best fine wool in the 
_ world; no less than half her landed wealth was founded upon 
her flocks of sheep, and from the Customs on fleeces she drew 
as much as a fifth of her public revenues. In Artois attempts 
were made to acclimatize the Cashmir sheep with their fine 
wool, in Spain the merinos of Maghreb, in Southern Italy 
the ewes and rams of Barbary. 

The larger live-stock, particularly on the big estates, 
played a more considerable part than they had done in the 
past. In order to meet the needs of commerce and of war, 
studs were created and crossings with foreign breeds were 
undertaken. In Germany, the Low Countries, the Boulogne 
country, Normandy, and Lombardy battle-horses (destriers) 
were reared ; in England, Gascony, Spain, and Southern Italy 
saddle-horses. Poitou, Provence, and Spain specialized in 
mule-breeding ; the ass was to be found everywhere and was 
the great burden-bearer of the people. The Alpine regions 
_ increased the value of their fine indigenous cattle. Low 

Germany, the Netherlands, and Flanders enriched themselves 
by the improvement of their Frisian and Flemish cows. 
England and Ireland, like the Argentine and the United 

233 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


States to-day, drew a good revenue from the export of bacon, 
ham, lard, and tallow, which they got from their numerous 
herds of cattle, and so also did Roussillon and Northern 
Spain. France and Upper Italy possessed fine breeds for 
draught and for meat; their cheeses and butters were 
already much sought after. 

The superior forms of cultivation were more and more 
honoured, particularly that of cereals, which had to meet 
the demands of a growing population, and was carried on 
everywhere in order to prevent the menace of local scarcity, 
ever present by reason of the difficulty of communications 
and the small returns of medieval harvests, which were four 
to seven times less than those of our own day. The élite of 
the farming community, recruited particularly among the 
monastic Orders and the Italian, Flemish, and Anglo-Norman 
agriculturalists, was at pains to recover the methods of the 
ancient Roman agricultural science. Upon this and upon 
their own experience they founded a new agricultural science, 
which was already remarkable. To vegetable manures they 
added animal manures in increasing quantities, notably in 
the Low Countries. In England they devised the manuring 
of land by means of folding sheep on it for eight weeks. 
Attempts were made, especially in France, to improve the 
soil by complementary manures, such as chalk, marl, ashes, 
turf, and calcareous sand. It is true that in the greater part 
of the West the extensive method of cultivation, with its 
enforced rotation of crops (a triennial rotation and fallow), 
persisted ; but already in certain regions—the Low Countries, 
the North of France, and the South of Italy—intensive culti- 
vation had appeared, in which the fallow year and the forced 
rotation were suppressed, and in which an alternation of 
crops was practised, by which the soil was permanently in 
use, and its nutritive power was kept up by fodder or 
leguminous crops, introduced every third year. Side by 
side with the labour of hoe and spade, the use of the iron 
ploughshare allowed the earth to be ploughed deeply, some- 
times seven or eight times on end; it was drawn by powerful 
teams of horses or oxen. The Western peasant, under the 
guidance of a group of enlightened agriculturalists, was now 
beginning his fruitful and obstinate struggle for the enrich- 
ment of the soil. 

| 234 


COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURE 


His activity displayed itself, first of all, in the cultivation 
of cereals, which was general everywhere; to rye, barley, 
oats, and millet there was added ‘‘ Saracen corn ’’ or buck- 
wheat. Wheat was produced for export in the rich clay soils 
of the Rhineland, Low Countries, and Western France, the 
campos of Castile, Lombardy, Campania, Apulia, and 
Sicily. The midland and south-eastern counties of England 
were producing as much as two and a half million quarters 
in 1314. Rice cultivation was introduced into Lower Aragon, 
Lower Lombardy, and Sicily in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries. Under the influence of the French monastic 
Orders and of the Italians and Spaniards, market garden- 
ing and horticulture made great progress; the usual 
vegetables were grown, together with shallots, artichokes, 
spinach, tarragon, and aubergine, which were imported from 
the East. The countries of the Mediterranean zone, in which 
the fertility of the gardens was maintained by irrigation, 
supplied and taught the rest of the West. Italy, Eastern 
Spain, and the South of France, full of flourishing orchards, 
provided the rest of Christendom with oranges, apricots, figs, 
pomegranates, lemons, and almonds. The cultivation of the 
olive became widespread in Sicily and Tuscany, Castile, Lower 
Aragon, and Lower Catalonia, and throughout the East of 
Spain; they exported oil everywhere. 

Everywhere were sold the nuts and chestnuts or the oils, 
almonds, and plums of Southern Italy and the Apennine 
marches, Provence and Lower Languedoc, Auvergne, Angou- 
mois, Agenais, Touraine, and Dauphiné, while Normandy 
and Picardy exported apples, which were as yet not 
much used for the making of cider. Eastern Spain and 
Languedoc traded in dried raisins, which rivalled those of 
Greece. Vines became, with corn and live-stock, one of the 
great sources of wealth of the West. Monastic Orders 
cultivated them, and peasants and proprietors united in 
planting them. Vineyards even appeared in regions which 
were least favourable to their cultivation, such as the Low 
Countries, England, Germany, and the North of France, 
where nothing but uncertain and defective vintages could 
be obtained from them. They were created or reconstructed 
successfully in the Rhine and Moselle lands and on the 
slopes of French Switzerland and of the county of Burgundy. 

235 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


They prospered in France, of which they formed, together _ 
with corn, the chief agricultural revenue. The vineyards of 
Upper Burgundy and Soissonnais, Limagne, and the Loire 
Valley, Aunis, Languedoc, the hills of the Rhéne country, 
and Avignon acquired a European renown. In 1830 the 
port of Bordeaux alone exported wines of Guienne to the 
value of £50,000 sterling, and La Rochelle exported 30,000 
to 85,000 tuns. Only Spain, Portugal, and Italy could rival 
French production. Their vineyards received an enormous 
extension from the twelfth century, and their wines soon 
supplanted the most famous brands of Greece and Cyprus. 

Finally, the renaissance of industry brought about a great 
development in industrial crops. The cultivation of the 
sugar-cane was attempted in Sicily, Spain, and Provence, 
that of aniseed and cummin had some success in Aragon, 
Catalonia, and Albigeois. The hop gardens of the Rhineland 
and Bavaria now began to be famous. Normandy, the Low 
Countries, and Northern France set to work to cultivate 
oleaginous plants for purposes of lighting and of food. 
Everywhere in the West the cultivation of hemp and flax 
was developed in the best soils; it went on in Germany and 
England as well as in the Low Countries, France, Spain, and 
Upper and Lower Italy. In Sicily, Calabria, and Basilicata 
an attempt was made to acclimatize the cotton plant of the 
Levant and indigo. Southern Italy and Eastern Spain 
wrested from the East its monopoly in the cultivation of 
mulberries and the raising of silkworms. In Burgundy, 
Normandy, and Spain the cultivation of teazles, and in 
Upper Italy, the South and North of France, the Low 
Countries, and Germany that of dye plants, woad, madder, 
and saffron was developed; the latter enriched more par- 
ticularly the Aquitanian provinces, the ‘‘ cockayne’’ lands 
of Albigeois and Lauraguais. 

The magnificent effort thus made by intelligent leaders 
and by the rural masses of the West was not without fruit. 
The result of this colonization, which is one of the principal 
claims of the Middle Ages to honour, was that the soil of 
the Western Christendom was brought under cultivation. It 
helped to bring about the transference to the Western 
countries of the economic hegemony hitherto possessed by 
the East, and gave them an unprecedented prosperity, 

236 


COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURE 


greater even than that of the Roman period. The greater 
part of Italy and of Spain now reached a high degree of 
wealth in the sphere of agricultural production. But France 
outshone them both; she became the ‘‘ fairest kingdom of 
the world after the kingdom of heaven,’’ which Froissart 
described before 1845—“‘* rich and hardy, with great abun- 
dance of rich and powerful folk, having great possessions.”’ 
England, civilized by the Normans, was held, in the thir- 
teenth century, to be a happy isle, fertile with all the fruits 
of the earth (terra ferax, insula predives). But the greatest 
triumph of colonization was the transformation of the Low 
Countries and Germany, wild and half-barbarous regions in 
the tenth century, into opulent lands which could rival the 
foremost agricultural centres of Christendom. By the immi- 
gration of French, Flemings, Frisians, and Germans, by the 
fecundity of the pioneer peasants, the West, which had been 
depopulated by the invasions, was peopled again with extra- 
ordinary rapidity in the space of 300 years. If one may 
judge by England, for instance, the population of the 
Western states doubled. Instead of 1,200,000 souls, the 
figure reached in 1086, the English counties (excluding 
Wales and the West) numbered 2,855,000 towards 13840. 
The Low Countries, almost empty in the tenth century, 
reached a higher figure yet; their villages contained on an 
average 1,500 souls, thrice as many as the majority of rural 
groups in the West. Germany, between the Rhine and the 
Oder, a sort of Kuropean Far East in the Dark Ages, became 
peopled with a hardy race of pioneers. The population of 
the Rhine and Danube lands became more and more dense; 
in the region between the Rhine and the Moselle it increased 
tenfold between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries. 
Spain repaired the gaps caused by the eternal war against 
the infidel. Italy, happier still, made such progress that 
in the fourteenth century she numbered, perhaps, some 
10,000,000 souls, while in the two Sicilies a census in 1275 
showed 1,200,000 souls—twice as many as at the height of 
the modern period. Finally, France, outstripping all the 
other countries of the West, attained a population of twenty 
to twenty-two million inhabitants (thirty-eight to forty-one 
to the square kilometre), almost as many as in the eighteenth 
century. The six states of the West contained together, 
237 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


perhaps, 60,000,000 souls before the Black Death—twice as 
many as they had numbered before the fifth century. ee 

Thus this great work of agrarian colonization did fork 
than merely increase material wealth; it also greatly in- 
creased human capital. Moreover, it brought about profound 
changes in the distribution and value of landed property and 
also in the condition of the rural masses. 3 


238 


CHAPTER IX 


CHANGES IN THE VALUE AND DISTRIBUTION OF LANDED PROPERTY AND 
EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST FROM THE 
ELEVENTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES. 


Tue influence of the colonizing movement of reclamation, 
together with the appearance and progress of a money 
economy, brought about a veritable revolution in the old 
feudal agrarian economy. 

The first result was a notable rise in the value of the soil 
and of landed revenues. The reclaimed lands increased 
enormously in value in a few centuries, enriching the owners 
who had been wise enough to bring them under cultivation 
and at the same time to retain possession of them. It has 
been shown, for example, that in the valleys of the Rhine 
and Moselle the value of the land had increased on an 
average sevenfold, often tenfold, and sometimes sixteen to 
twentyfold, since the end of the Dark Ages. In Roussillon 
an estate, which was valued at 100 sous in the eleventh 
century, was worth 3,000 in the thirteenth. In France the 
price of a hectare of ploughland—which had already risen 
greatly by the twelfth century—doubled in the thirteenth, 
as also did that of meadows, vineyards, and woods; for the 
ploughland it reached 222 fr., and for the others 616, 636, 
and 104 fr. respectively. At the same time rents rose 
with the rise in the value of agricultural produce. In France 
a hectolitre of corn rose between the years 1200 and 18385 
from 3 fr. 80-to 8 fr. 56, and a hectolitre of wine from 5 fr. 12 
to 25 fr. 66. An ox, which sold for 21 fr. at the first of 
these dates, fetched 52 fr. at the second; a sheep, instead 
of 3 fr., cost 4 fr. 50; a pig 12 fr. instead of 6 fr.; butter was 
worth 0 fr. 65 instead of 0 fr. 45 the kilogramme; poultry 
0 fr. 50 instead of O fr. 82. By calculations which seem 
plausible it has been found possible to rate the level of the 
ground rent in France during the first third of the fourteenth 
century at between 5 per cent. and 84 per cent. : 

A large part of this increase of capital and income fell to 

" 239 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the lot of the large landowners; but small landowners and 
the cultivators of the soil also benefited more or less propor- 
tionately. As a whole the movement of reclamation was 
chiefly favourable to private property and to great royal or 
ecclesiastical properties, rather than to the feudal estates, 
which were gradually broken up for the profit of the 
bourgeoisie and the peasants. 

Collective property and seigniorial property were thus 
the two chief victims of this peaceful agrarian revolution. 
Except in those parts of the British Isles which were in- 
habited by Ceits, where it was partially maintained for the 
profit of the clans, the former decreased in all the states of 
the West, as a result of the progress of colonization, which 
fitted ill with a régime of indivisibility and periodical par- 
titions, unfavourable as they are to the cultivation of the 
soil. Sometimes the common lands were entirely usurped by 
the lords or restricted by means of the enclosures which they 
made therein. Sometimes the reconstituted royal power 
claimed them in the name of the imprescriptible sovereignty 
of the state. Sometimes, finally, the peasants appropriated 
them, allocating them in private ownership or bringing them 
under cultivation. In the ancient Germanic lands, the Low 
Countries, England, and Germany the periodical divisions 
of ploughlands ceased. The village communities often 
alienated undivided lands. Of the old agrarian collectivism 
there remained only occasional vestiges, commons or wastes, 
marches or devéses, formed in general of land which was 
unsuitable for cultivation, and upon which the peasants, 
with the agreement of the state and the lords, could continue 
to exercise customary rights. 

On the other hand, seigniorial property also found itself 
the object of attack. At the very time when the military 
class was tending to organize itself into a close hereditary 
military caste, its landed property, the principal basis of its 
social influence, was diminishing. In many of the Western 
lands it lost, with its political prerogatives, some of the 
sources of revenue which derived from them, such as rights 
of justice. But it was, above all, social and economic causes 
which brought about a crisis in the fortunes of feudal 
property. In the majority of states ‘‘noble”’ land, 
at first inalienable and indivisible, became susceptible of 

240 


‘ 
Per twee ee Se ee ee 


EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


alienation and division; indeed, it became subdivided to an 
infinite extent. In Italy feudal estates were cut up between 
seven, ten, and sometimes a hundred co-heirs; in Languedoc 
fifty gentlemen were sometimes living on one fief. Poverty 
forced a large number of the holders of these lands to get 
rid of them by degrees. Moreover, the prodigality and mad 
wastefulness of the members of the feudal class, their taste 
for luxury and warlike adventures, their quarrels and their 
lawsuits, drove them at an early date to ruinous expedients 
for raising money, such as loans raised upon mortgages or 
land rents, which rapidly led to the final alienation of their 
possessions. 

On the other hand, the feudal lords, usually unversed in 
business affairs, had no idea of how to profit from the reclama- 
tion which was going on under their eyes, nor from the 
increased value of landed property and produce. In most 
cases they consented to the clearance of their land and the 
emancipation of their tenants, in return for the payment of 
rents or fixed dues. Frequently they even stipulated that 
these dues or cens should be partly paid in money, the value 
of which fell. To spare themselves the trouble of farming 
the land themselves, they willingly let out their demesnes at a 
rent, with the result that they sacrificed the future to the satis- 
faction of their present needs. In Normandy, for example, 
from the twelfth century, noble estates began to disappear, 
submerged beneath money rents, which in practice trans- 
ferred them to the peasants. Indeed, wherever the urban 
bourgeoisie prevailed, a mortal war was waged against the 
feudatories and despoiled them of their possessions. The 
peasants, on their side, multiplied their attempts at usurpa- 
tion and profited by the frequent disappearance of written 
title-deeds to legitimize their hold on seigniorial property, 
with the approval of the royal courts, especially in France. 
With the exception of England—where the gentry, ceasing 
to be a knightly class and amalgamating with the small 
freeholders, renounced the profession of arms in order to 
administer their own estates, and thus escaped poverty— 
the mass of the nobles degenerated everywhere into a needy 
and sometimes starveling class, which possessed no more than 
a wretched remnant of the old seigniorial property, in- 
sufficient to support them. 

241 R 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


In Italy one section of the nobility turned to industrial 
and commercial careers and thus escaped ruin; but the other 
section, incapable of adapting itself, vegetated and sometimes 
sank into destitution. In Siena in the thirteenth century 
descendants of ancient aristocratic families were to be seen 
begging their bread. In Spain many gentlemen suffered a 
like fate; the wisest of those in the towns (caballeros de villa) 
opened their ranks to labourers and prosperous artisans and 
with them formed an influential municipal class. In France 
they lived wretchedly upon the meagre rents of their censi- 
taires, or were obliged to enter the service of the king or the 
nobles. The same thing happened in the Low Countries; in 
certain parishes, notably in Brabant, the number of knights 
fell from sixty to one or two, and a whole category of inferior 
nobles—the so-called munisteriales—ceased to exist. In 
Germany a new nobility, which had grown up out of the 
fusion of the knights and the ministeriales, vegetated miser- 
ably ; occasionally it became merged with the peasantry ; for 
the most part it lived by robbery. The German noble was 
a boor (junker) or, worse still, a brigand (raubritter). 

Nevertheless, the élite of the military class, the great 
nobles, were able to maintain and even to increase their 
landed property. France had its appanaged fiefs and its 
nobility of the first rank ; the two Sicilies had their baronage ; 
Spain had its oligarchy of 880 victorious Valencian gentlemen, 
its wealthy lords of Aragon, its proud lords of Castile; 
Germany had its princes, dukes, margraves, burgraves, 
counts palatine, enjoying both political sovereignty (lande- 
sherrschaft) and territorial possessions (grundesherrschaft). 
England had her great barons and landlords. All tried to 
increase and preserve, sometimes by means of primogeniture 


and the prohibition of alienation and subinfeudation, the 


considerable portion of landed property which had fallen to 
their share. But, on the whole, feudal property lost its 
former preponderance in the West. 

_ The state, however, tended to reconstitute its domains. It 
added to them in some countries by conquest, as in Spain, the 
two Sicilies, and England, in others by confiscations, acquisi- 
tions, or disinheritances, and by the part which it took in the 
work of reclamation, as in France, the Low Countries, and 
certain parts of Germany. In the time of his greatest power 

242 


EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


the Holy Roman Emperor had immense imperial estates 
(reichsgiiter), spreading from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, 
the revenues of which brought him in in 1180 as much as six 
million thalers. Similarly in France the royal domain 
doubled in extent under Philip Augustus, and its revenues 
reached 438,000 Paris livres, which grew to 525,000 livres 
(about twelve million francs) in 1825, in the time of 
Charles IV. Nevertheless, state property suffered continual 
fluctuations by reason of pledges, alienations, donations, 
the prodigality or weakness of sovereigns, and the constant 
usurpations which diminished it. Thus the imperial domain 
after the great interregnum was diminished by two-thirds 
(1280). 

More persevering in its policy and more successful in its 
administration, the Western Church continued to extend its 
dominion over the soil. It is true that old religious Orders 
like the Cluniacs (which had fallen into decadence), or 
unthrifty ecclesiastical dignitaries and chapters, sometimes, 
by their carelessness and rash expenditure, compromised the 
patient work of piling up possessions pursued by their cor- 
poration. But in general the Church profited, steadily in- 
creased its territorial power, taking advantage of the reclama- 
tion of which it was the chief promoter, the piety of the 
faithful who poured gifts upon it, and the increase of 
movable capital, in which it was able to share, and which 
it often invested in land. ‘The new religious Orders—Cister- 
cians, Carthusians, Premonstratensians, Templars, Teutonic 
knights, the Brotherhood of the Sword-Brethren—took their 
place among the greatest landed proprietors of Christendom. 
The Cistercians made their farms or granges into magnificent 
estates, the objects of admiration and of scandal, and their 
own chapters admitted that the passion for property had 
become an ulcer among them (1191). The 18,000 Knights 
Templars in the thirteenth century were proud of their 
10,000 manses, and the Abbey of Priim boasted of its 1,466 
estates. The Teutonic knights had appropriated the soil of 
Prussia, the Sword-Brethren that of the Baltic provinces. 
A Cistercian abbey, Las Huelgas, near Burgos, had the land 
of sixty-four townships in its possession. 

Chapters and bishops rivalled the monks. The Arch- 
bishops of Cologne, Mainz, and Treier had seized imperial 

243 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


possessions; the Archbishop of Riga had appropriated half 
the soil of Livonia; the Archbishop of Toledo drew 80,000 
ducats of revenue from his estates. Even the mendicant 
Orders, Franciscans and Dominicans, were not slow, in the 
words of Jacopone di Todi, one of their members, to ** banish 
poverty to heaven,’’ in order to take their share in the riches 
of this earth. In Castile the conquest had given the Church 
possession of a quarter of the soil, in England of a fifth. In 
spite of their deep faith, the princes had begun, by the 
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to take restrictive 
measures to try to prevent this growing monopolization 
of the soil of the West by ecclesiastical bodies. Mortmain, 
that fixed and inalienable form of property, had ended by 
becoming a danger to lay society. 

The attraction of landed property, as a source of wealth 
and of social consideration, even seized upon the new powers 
which were arising in medieval society. The urban com- 
munes built up for themselves on all hands more or less 
extensive domains, either by purchase or by usurpation, at 
the expense of the feudatories. By acquisitions and by 
reclamation their estates grew. They had their subject and 
rent-paying peasants, their contadini in Italy, their pfahl- 
-burgen in Germany, whom they protected, and whose work 
they supervised. Arles, for instance, owned a lordship, 
several castles, lands, vineyards, and ponds in Camargue. 

The bourgeois, on their part, aspired to take their place 
among the landed gentry ; they managed it easily, by employ- 
ing a large part of the capital which they had acquired by 
the exercise of commerce and industry in the purchase of 
estates alienated by the nobility, and the appropriation of 
uncultivated lands, which they proceeded to have cleared. 
Henceforward there began a slow transference of the rural soil 
into the hands of the middle class. Moreover, now, for the 
first time, the rural masses profited by the movement of 
reclamation and emancipation, to win, in their turn, the 
ownership or quasi-ownership of that landed capital which 
up till then it had been their part merely to make fruitful 
by their work for the profit of others. 

An event of the first importance was then, indeed, trans- 
forming the structure of Western society and of human 
society in general. This was the accession of the agricultural 

244 


EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


classes, who formed nine-tenths of the population of the 
West, to liberty and to higher conditions of life. For the 
first time in the history of the world the mass of the 
peasantry succeeded, like the mass of the working folk in 
the towns, in winning recognition of the social value of 
manual labour and of the labourer. 

Their enfranchisement was to some slight extent the work 
of the equalizing tradition of Christianity and of Roman 
Law. Sometimes, indeed, villeins were enfranchised in the 
name of ‘* Christ, who ransomed all men from the yoke of 
slavery,’’ as a charter of 1233 expresses it, or, yet again, 
for *‘ the salvation of the soul ’’ of the master who emanci- 
pated them, as a number of acts recite. Often, too, kings 
and lawyers proclaimed the imprescriptible rights of man to 
liberty, founded on natural equality, as was done by the 
Capetian kings of France, Louis VII in 1170, and Louis X 
in 1815, and by the celebrated legist Beaumanoir. But these 
idealistic sentiments usually only influenced a few enlightened 
rulers, or were used merely as a rather imperfect disguise 
for more realistic motives. It was, in reality, a series of 
economic and social necessities which made the movement 
of emancipation irresistible. 

The advent of monetary wealth was a grave menace to 
the preponderance of fortunes based upon land. In order 
to maintain and increase the value and revenues of the latter, 
it was essential to keep the peasants on the land, to increase 
their labour services, to prevent the exodus of serfs to the 
towns, to attract settlers, finally to give peasant labour the 
remuneration and the guarantees which had been for so 
long refused to it. Charters sometimes avow this quite 
openly. Emancipation, says one of these, has as its object 
**the multiplication ’’ of cultivators. It makes, say a large 
number of others, ‘‘ for the interest (ad utilitatem) of the 
owners and the improvement of their estates (ad emenda- 
tionem villarum).’’ Often it was pressing and immediate 
necessity which determined the lords to emancipate their 
villeins. They sold liberty for fair silver coins, either out- 
right for a commutation fee or for an annual rent, in order 
to meet the claims of their creditors, or of their own lives 
of luxury and warlike adventures, or to ensure themselves a 
regular revenue without further trouble. Hence in Cham- 

245 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


pagne (1248) and the Toulouse district, and in Albigeois 
(1298), and even on the domains of the Capetian and 
Plantagenet kings, the obligatory enfranchisement of serfs 
was decreed as a fiscal expedient, more advantageous for 
the lord than for the tenant. 

Political considerations also favoured the movement 
towards emancipation. Kings, usually in the twelfth 
century unfavourable to the enfranchisement of peasants 
on the royal domain, were very willing to assist them to 
emancipate themselves upon seigniorial or ecclesiastical 
estates, in order to weaken the rival authority of the 
feudatories. The Church, at first violently hostile to the 
emancipation of the peasant, as she had been to that of the 
artisan, because its immediate result was a diminution of her 
revenues, gradually rallied to the movement, when its power 
as a lever for the colonization or improvement of her immense 
estates became manifest. The urban bourgeoisie promoted 
rural liberty with all its strength, and the communes 
declared decisively for the peasants against nobles and 
churchmen, their common adversaries. Their first care after 
their victory, notably in Italy, was to proclaim the emanci- 
pation of rural tenants, in virtue of the rights of man, in- 
alienable despite ‘‘ the deceit or force’? upon which serfdom 
rested, and in it they themselves led the way. At last even 
the landowners perceived that the true method of preserving 
their social preponderance was to exploit an irresistible move- 
ment to their own advantage, by turning the concession of 
rural liberties into a new source of direct or indirect profit, 
and a new means of restoring by the prestige of wealth an 
authority which neither tradition nor birth any longer 
sufficed to retain for them. 

In any case, resistance soon became impossible or dene} 
ous, in face of the effervescence which began to take place 
from the twelfth century onwards in the Western countryside. 
The peasants, resolved to be free, stopped at no sacrifice, no 
ruse, no means of coercion. Sometimes they offered their 
needy lords large sums of money, the fruit of long economies, 
for the purchase of a charter of enfranchisement. Sometimes 
they usurped clerical privileges to escape from the jurisdiction 
of lay lords. Sometimes they stole or burned the seigniorial 
charters, or else by innumerable quibbles contested the 

246 


“EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


validity of feudal rights. More often still they evoked their 
customary privileges; they disavowed the lord; they 
threatened to abandon his land and fly to the neighbour- 
ing town or to a royal domain, upon which peasants were 
free. Finally, like the bourgeois and the artisans, they had 
recourse to the invincible weapon of association. They 
formed rural unions, fraternities, confréries, and conjura- 
tions; they bound themselves together by oaths. They rose 
against lay or ecclesiastical lords and dragged liberty from 
their masters by veritable jacqueries, accompanied by the 
burning of castles and acts of violence against their op- 
pressors. Everywhere, from the two Sicilies to Germany, a 
number of such revolts took place at this period, episodes 
which the chroniclers in general disdained to record. But 
those of which they have handed down the memory, and 
which took place upon the domains of the Church, such as 
the risings at Sahagun in Castile, at Arles in Roussillon, 
against the Chapter of Notre Dame of Paris, and the Abbeys 
of Corbie, St. Martin of Tours, Saint-Denis and Vézelay, and 
in the bishoprics of Soissons and Laon, suffice to show that 
the peasant, like the roturier of the town, could conquer by 
force the independence which a blind resistance refused 
to him. 

The movement began in the eleventh century by a series 
of agreements, often individual, which fixed the obligations 
and lightened the duties of the villeins; it’ proceeded more 
widely by dint of collective agreements, in which large rural 
groups were concerned. This became general in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries. Typical charters or ‘‘ customs ”’ 
began to spread, such as those of Lorris in Gatinais and 
Beaumont in Argonne, which were adopted by nearly 600 
villages or townships in France and in Luxemburg, those of 
Breteuil in Normandy and England, of Flumet in French 
Switzerland, of Freiburg in Germany, of Mons in the Low 
Countries, and of Santiago and Logrofio in Spain. To the 
long leases known as baux emphytéotiques, the fee farms, 
the baux & complant, and the grants of hostise or coloniza- 
tion, which assured to individual cultivators special advan- 
tages in the enjoyment of their tenures, there were added 
general liberties, recognized by the fueros, laws, customs, 
charters, granted to thousands of settlers in the reclaimed 

247 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


lands. They grouped themselves into villages or townships 
called new or free towns—villes neuves, villes franches, 
sauvetés, bastides, salvetats, bourgs neufs, bourgs francs— 
which may be found all over the West under analogous 
names. | 

There, within regular enclosures, protected by moats or 
thick walls, under the shelter of their churches and of the 
cross, symbol of the peace of God, the peasants found a 
refuge for their new-born liberty. The greater part of Italy, 
particularly Tuscany and Lombardy, the Castiles, Navarre, 
the Basque provinces, Western France, the Low Countries, 
and the German Rhineland were the first regions in which 
the rural populations received their franchises, and in which, 
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, emancipation made 
the greatest strides. Eastern and Central France, the two 
Sicilies, Aragon, and Catalonia, the Eastern Netherlands, 
Northern and Central Germany, and England, followed more 
slowly. But in general the greater part of the rural popula- 
tion of the West had almost completed its emancipation by 
the first half of the fourteenth century. 

There was considerable variety in the conditions under 
which enfranchisement was granted; in some places it was 
very wide, in others surrounded with restrictions ; sometimes 
concessions were made in a body, sometimes only bit by bit. 
But in general emancipation gave the peasants precious 
guarantees, whether obtained en bloc or separately. 

The first benefit which it brought was that of personal 
liberty. The peasant could dispose of himself. Laws and 
customs henceforward recognized that man is born and 
should remain free, and that he cannot be an object of 
property. The charters of the ‘‘ new towns’? even went so 
far as to declare the villein’s person inviolable. The master’s 
right of coercion disappeared or was limited. Liberty of 
domicile was admitted, and the lord could no longer 
bring back by force the peasant who had left his estate, 
provided that the latter had given him notice, ceded to him 
a part of his movable possessions, and furnished him with a 
substitute, or paid a special tax. Barriers placed upon 
freedom to marry were suppressed or lowered, in return for 
special payments or in virtue of conventions concluded 
between lords (traités d’entrecours). The legal personality 

248 


EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


of the villein was recognized; he could sue in a court of 
justice, and, together with his wife and children, enjoyed 
legal protection against ill-treatment. The right of peasants 
to bequeath their movable and immovable property was 
recognized ; where the mainmorte survived, its prescriptions 
were successfully evaded by a series of legal fictions, as in 
Auvergne and Nivernais; most frequently it was bought off 
and abolished or replaced by light money taxes—twelve- 
pence, for instance, in the Low Countries. In the same way 
the most vexatious inheritance rights were suppressed—such, 
for instance, as the ‘‘ best chattle,’’ which enabled the lord 
to seize half of the inheritance in Germany, England, and the 
Low Countries. Almost everywhere the villeins could hence- 
forth freely alienate, exchange, sell, or bequeath their pos- 
sessions of all sorts. 

The law protected the property of the emancipated 
peasants; it often forbade the seizure of their tools, their 
live-stock, their harvests, or their furniture. In general all 
unjust charges, called ‘* exactions ’’ or ‘* evil customs,’’ were 
abolished, as well as all those which belonged to the state 
of serfdom, notably the capitation tax, with or without a 
redemption fee. The other payments, the dues in kind 
which represented a sort of rent, the cens and champarts and 
terrages, were sometimes partially redeemed, more generally 
fixed or converted into pecuniary rents, so that their weight 
grew less as the revenue of the land rose and the value of 
money fell. Tithes, forced gifts, and dues were fixed, trans- 
formed, or limited. The arbitrary corvée was abolished or 
commuted or replaced by money taxes. Most frequently 
the number and duration of the days of labour due from the 
villeins were limited and their conditions of work fixed. In 
Beauvais, which was, however, exceptional, the peasants 
from whom the corvée could be exacted had to furnish only 
one day’s labour and three days’ ploughing each year, and 
in many places the lord had to feed them on such occasions. 
The tallage or queste was sometimes suppressed and some- 
times replaced by a fixed poll or hearth tax, proportioned 
to the peasant’s fortune and levied according to an in- 
variable and moderate rate. ‘* Aids’? were commuted, 
abolished, changed into fixed payments, or limited, as 
also were the seigniorial monopolies which were so harm- 

249 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ful to economic liberty, and the seigniorial rights which 
impeded freedom of movement. 

The rural populations obtained commercial franchises and 
freedom to trade in their fairs and markets. Fixed weights 
and measures, and sometimes also a fixed coinage, were 
guaranteed to them. In Central France they received the 
rights of hunting, fishing, and free warren. They obtained 
the recognition of advantageous customary rights over the 
common lands, and were sometimes even allowed to appro- 
priate the assarts which they made themselves. The abusive 
privileges which the lord had exercised in virtue of his rights 
of sovereignity, such as hospitality (gite, albergue), prise, 
and procuration, were commuted or limited. The military 
obligations of villeins for local defence were restricted ; they 
were allowed to commute them or to convert them into 
pecuniary rents, and the same held good of the seigniorial 
sauvement or police services. 

In addition to these civil and economic liberties the rural 
classes won administrative and political privileges, guaran- 
tees against the arbitrary powers of the feudal court, its 
fiscal demands, and its officials. They often stipulated that 
they should be subject to the jurisdiction of only one 
tribunal, and that cases should be tried on the spot and by 
a jury of their peers or chief men (bont homines, notarii), 
according to fixed rules of procedure, which protected them 
against arbitrary arrests, confiscations, and abusive fines. 
They received the right of release on bail, of fleeing to 
sanctuary, of appealing to superior courts, and of pleading 
against the lord himself. Sometimes, notably in the new 
villages of the reclaimed districts, the peasants intervened 
in the choice of the seigniorial officials, bailiffs, provosts, and 
podestats. Most often they contented themselves with gain- 
ing recognition by charter of the right of meeting in their 
village and district assemblies to discuss common interests 
and to nominate magistrates, prud’hommes, mayors, 
provosts, consuls, judges, jurats, inspectors (veedores), who 
were invested with certain duties of police and justice, 
proctors who were charged with defending their cases before 
the law-courts, inferior agents, sergeants, foresters, reeves, 
woodmen, on whom devolved the duty of securing observa- 
tion of the local regulations or bans. The rural communities 

250 


EMANCIPATION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


had their property, their common lands, their churches, their 
hospitals. They participated in the administration of the 
parishes. Sometimes they rose higher still and attained 
possession of full political rights, as in certain regions of 
Northern France and Flanders, in the valleys of the Alps 
and Pyrenees, in which they formed real communes (uni- 
versitates) and even leagues, such as the hermandades of 
Northern Spain, and confederations, such as those of the 
forest cantons of Switzerland (1291-1350). 

Extending to a much larger mass of people than did 
the emancipation of the towns, this emancipation of the 
peasantry was one of the greatest events of history. It 
endowed the rural multitudes, who had never in the past 
known such a régime, with the most precious prerogatives. 
For the first time, liberty of person and of contract was 
proclaimed and put into practice among the country people. 
The peasant won, to a great extent, the free disposition of 
his labour. He had a legal place and a recognized value in 
society, and with the sense of his independence he soon 
acquired that of his strength. The rural masses ceased to be 
passive herds and became groups of men, proud of their 
liberty and determined to have their rights respected. A 
new era began in the history of the peasant, and the con- 
ditions of life of the rural classes were improved to an extent 
hitherto unknown. 


251 


CHAPTER X 


ORGANIZATION AND CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES IN THE WEST 
FROM THE TWELFTH TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURIES. 


In the rural districts of the West, as in the towns, emancipa- 
tion and colonization brought about the formation of new 
social categories, and determined the birth of classes different 
from those which had characterized the previous age. 
Distinctions began to appear between the free peasant pro- 
prietors, the censitaires, tenants who paid dues and were 
not proprietors, though they enjoyed a sort of semi-owner- 
ship, and the associates and organizers of cultivation. Above 
the survivals of the old social and economic régime, serfdom, 
and even slavery, there appeared a class of agricultural 
wage-earners. 

At the head of the mass of peasants there grew up a true 
bourgeoisie, a rural third estate, which attained enjoyment 
of the full and entire ownership of its land, and even, by dint 
of economy, bought up the lands of nobles; a class which 
thrust its children into the ranks of the clergy and into 
administrative posts in the service of princes and lords, and 
which soon acquired both wealth and consideration. It was 
to this class that the small free proprietors of Germany, 
known as fief-owning peasants (lehnbauern), belonged, as well 
as those peasants, numerous in the south, who were exempt 
from the payment of cens (freizinsen, parleute), and the 
pioneer assarters, who had become hereditary landowners 
(erbpachter). They often amalgamated with the official class, 
with the country squires (knechte), even with the knightly 
classes (ritterstand). A similar élite was also to be found in 
the Low Countries. In Flanders and France some who were 
thus privileged managed to slip into the ranks of the nobility, 
as did that erstwhile serf of Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire, who be- 
came, in the twelfth century, one of the best-known knights 
of Burgundy. 7 

Most often they were the root from which sprang clerks, 
officials, town burgesses, village ‘*‘ cocks of the walk,’’ who, 
according to one satire, owned ‘‘ pasture and land enow 

252 


CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


and great possessions.’’ In Spain, especially in Roussillon, 
where there were more peasant owners in the thirteenth 
century than there are to-day, the fact that they had filled the 
office of seigniorial bailiff or judge was enough for them to 
mount on horseback, like nobles, and eat wheaten bread. In 
England the small peasant proprietors, socagers of ancient 
origin, or newly founded yeomen and freeholders, swore 
fealty directly to the king, sat upon juries and county courts, 
and approximated to the gentry, who led the same laborious 
life as they. ‘‘ The toe of the peasant comes so near the heel 
of the courtier, he galls his kibe,’’ says an English proverb 
which Shakespeare has preserved. The formation and 
development of this middle class of small peasant owners, 
comfortably off or even rich, was a characteristic of this 
period, and was in a great measure the result of the move- 
ment of emancipation. 

The mass of villeins in the West formed by far the most 
numerous class, that of censitaires or rent-paying tenants 
who, under various names, succeeded in obtaining the 
majority of civil liberties, but remained subject to a variety 
of obligations, without attaining full proprietary ownership. 
On the lands which these tenants cultivated the old land- 
owners preserved their proprietary rights, attested by the 
payment of quit rents (cens). But most of the pre- 
rogatives of real property passed to the tenants, who 
thus became quasi-owners of the holdings which they 
cultivated. They possessed the essential rights of property, 
to wit, succession, donation, sale, and alienation ; they could 
mortgage or bequeath their holdings. They were secured 
against eviction, on condition that they regularly paid 
their rents, which had become invariable and _ strictly 
determined by individual or collective contracts. Such 
was the condition of millions of peasants in the Western 
world, whose situation was ruled by extremely various con- 
ventions and leases. 

In Germany the hérigen, as they were called, often ob- 
tained in virtue of ‘‘ spade right ”’ (jus palae), something like 
the full ownership of reclaimed lands and fixity of tenure, in 
virtue of long-term or hereditary leases (erbpachten), the 
lords being unable to refuse them admission or to resume 
possession of the peasant estate. In the Netherlands the con- 

258 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


cession of leases for an indefinite period (beklemregt) had the 
same result. In England the tenants obtained legal recogni- 
tion of their hereditary enjoyment of their lands and took the 
name of copyholders, or tenants by copy of court roll; they 
formed a class so numerous that up to quite recent times they 
held a third of the soil of Britain. In France, the process by 
which the peasants took possession of the soil was disguised 
under a mass of conventions and leases drawn up on different 
terms and under different names, all of which resulted in con- 
ferring effectual rights of property upon the cultivator in re- 
turn for the payment of cens. The perpetual lease (afora- 
mento) of Portugal and the contract (livello) at a land rent 
(fitto), which became usual in Italy, acted in the same way. 
Under the latter system the peasant even possessed the right 
of lods et ventes, and the landowner retained only a right of 
pre-emption in case of sale, retaining his title by requiring 
the contract to be renewed at more or less lengthy intervals. 
Thus, little by little, there was accomplished one of the 
most important events in history, the transference of the 
right of real property, under the form of long or here- 
ditary leases, until such time as the last vestiges of the old 
subjection should be entirely swept away. 

The peasant property which now appeared under these 
modest disguises still retained the aspect which it had 
presented in feudal times. It was composed of little hold- 
ings, often made up of scattered strips, which tended to be- 
come smaller and smaller, as a result of the custom of equal 
division among heirs or the hazard of sales and alienations. 
In Germany the average size of the rural hufe, which varied 
from 14 to 120 acres, diminished by three-quarters after the 
twelfth century. In England it was rare for the copyholder 
or for the freeholder to hold more than a virgate of land (30 
acres); often he possessed only half that amount and a 
good number of holdings contained only 44 acres, with a 
strip of meadow. In Picardy labourers who owned oxen 
had, as a rule, about 30 acres. The subdivision went so far 
that there were in Roussillon rural domains or bordes formed 
of sixteen to sixty-two lots, while in Picardy labourers known 
as haricotiers banded together to cultivate their holdings, 
which were not large enough to support plough-teams, and 
in Italy the northern communes had to take measures to 

254 


CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


facilitate the building up again of these small properties by 
means of exchanges. 

Among the rural populations there soon began to appear, 
during the period of emancipation, new classes exploiting the 
land, distinct from the small free proprietors and the copy- 
holders or censitaires. At first they formed only a small 
minority, comprising tenant-farmers, métayers, and agricul- 
tural wage-earners. 

The system of tenant-farming allowed peasants of 
independent and energetic character, who were possessed 
of some small capital and anxious for the preservation 
of their freedom, to obtain from the soil returns of 
which they kept the larger part, on condition of paying a 
fixed rent to the landowner. On their side the landowners 
kept full ownership of the land let out at farm, were able 
to participate in the increment on its capital value, and did 
not have to take the risks involved in farming the soil them- 
selves, or submit to the disappointments which the system 
of commutation rents had often carried with it. The tenant- 
farmer system appeared most generally in regions of 
advanced agriculture; in Italy from the twelfth century, 
and in the Low Countries, Northern France, Catalonia, and 
Roussillon in the thirteenth. But previous to the fourteenth 
century it spread only slowly in the greater part of the West. 

It was 4 system of speculative enterprise, in which town 
burgesses took part as well as peasants, who thus undertook 
the risk of farming seigniorial and ecclesiastical domains, 
on condition of keeping them in good condition, intro- 
ducing useful improvements, and paying in money or 
in kind a fixed part of the produce, which in Italy was 
called a canon. The amount payable varied in Tuscany from 
a third for cereals to a tenth or an eleventh for wine, olives, 
and fruit. The landowner sometimes provided the farmer 
with part of his stock and seed, and with extra labour for 
the harvest and for threshing the grain; he had to pay an 
indemnity for unearned increment, if the farmer had notably 
improved the soil. Landlord and tenant only engaged them- 
selves for a short term—one year, two years, three years, 
but in the interests of both parties the majority of farm 
leases varied from six to twenty-nine years, in multiples of 
three years, corresponding to the triennial fallows. 

255 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Side by side with these leases and the class of tenant- 
farmers, there also appeared leases of métayage and the 
class of métayers. The system of free and temporary associa- 
tion between the cultivator and the landowner reserved to 
the former the free disposal of his work when the contract 
lapsed, and to the latter the free disposal of his land, while 
to both it ensured an equitable partition of produce, without 
risk of loss. This method of farming (mezzadria) and class of 
cultivators arose in Tuscany and Central Italy in the twelfth 
century and spread through the centre and north of the 
peninsula in the course of the two following centuries. It is 
found in Provence, Catalonia, and Roussillon at the same 
time, and then in Central and Western France and Normandy, 
where the system of métayage was used for clearances, in 
Flanders from 1220, and in the country round Treier and the 
Rhineland. 

This system allowed poor peasants, who had no holding 
or who were anxious not to lose their freedom by tying 
themselves indefinitely to the land, to use their labour in 
return for a fixed share in the produce of the soil. The land- 
owner provided them with capital in the shape of the land, 
with their tools, seed, manure, hay and straw, the cost of 
keeping up buildings, and half of the expense of harvesting, 
threshing, and winnowing. The métayer gave his labour, 
looked after the beasts, gave corvées and carting services, 
and handed part of the revenue over to the landowner in 
kind, the amount often varying in Italy from a third to a 
mere tenth, and only rising as high as a half for fruit, over 
and above obligatory gifts of eggs, poultry, and cheese. But 
he had the right to take the whole produce of the smaller 
live-stock, pigs and farmyard animals. He could not be 
expelled save for specific cases of ill-behaviour, and he could 
enjoy the profits of the soil for periods varying from two to 
five years, or even from twelve to twenty-nine. Henceforth, 
too, another form of limited co-operation, the stock lease 
or bail a cheptel, frequently associated peasants and land- 
owners in the purchase of cattle and in the profits of stock- 
farming, especially in Catalonia, Roussillon, and Provence. 

Finally, there was the class of agricultural wage-earners, 
day labourers, and domestic servants, which began to form 
about the same time as that of the urban wage-earners, in 

256 


CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


proportion as emancipation restricted landowners in the use 
of that unpaid labour, or labour at reduced rates, which the 
corvées had given them, and in proportion as the system of 
direct cultivation and agricultural enterprise was added to 
the copyhold system. The number of holdings to be granted 
no longer corresponded to the demands of a growing popula- 
tion of peasants, who had attained freedom, but no longer 
had access to land, or who preferred to preserve complete 
independence without being bound in any way to the soil, 
making a livelihood instead by hiring out their labour. The 
formation of a class of day labourers may be observed in 
Italy from the twelfth century, and their number grew 
throughout the West with the approach of the fourteenth. 
They were known in the Italian peninsula as braccianta, 
pimenti, or land labourers (laboratores terrarum), in Navarre 
as villanos asaderos, in Languedoc and Provence as brassiers, 
in the West of France as hotteurs and bezocheurs, in England 
as labourers, and in the Low Countries as koppers. 

Often, like the German kotsaten, the Flemish and Walloon 
cossates, and the English cotters, they had a cottage, a little 
scrap of land and a few heads of cattle, but they were forced 
to hire out their labour to procure the supplementary re- 
sources necessary for existence. Many others were entirely 
destitute of landed capital, and lived solely by the wages of 
their labour. But all of them, whether hired by the day or 
on piecework, had the great advantage of disposing freely 
of their persons, bargaining for their wage and engaging 
their labour only for a short period. 

More stable, though less independent, was the situation 
of another class of wage-earners, which was also being formed 
at this time, that of the servants in husbandry (servientes, 
valets). It became more and more the practice to choose 
the personnel necessary for the direct farming of the land 
by the owner from among persons of free condition, whether 
they were entirely destitute of property or not. Ox-herds, 
carters, goat-herds, shepherds and shepherdesses, swine- 
herds, servant girls were thus hired by the month, or more 
often by the year; in Normandy there were servants who 
hired themselves for nine years on end. They lived in strict 
dependence upon the landowner, who exercised an extensive 
authority over them, and even a justice which was not unlike 

257 s 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


that exercised by the absolute lord of former days; but their 
subordination never went so far as to involve a loss of 
liberty. 

Small owners, copyholders or censitaires, tenant-farmers 
and métayers, and agricultural wage-earners, such were the 
classes which henceforth made up the rural population of the 
West. Their fortunes varied, but all of them were free. 
Nevertheless, the transformation was neither complete nor 
continuous. Like witnesses to a tenacious past and to institu- 
tions which might have been thought dead, serfdom and 
slavery survived, and sometimes even reappeared. Through- 
out Northern Germany the old Slav or Pruss populations, who 
had been allowed to keep their lives, formed a new class of 
serfs (tides, smurdes), ‘‘men of naught,”’ despised and ill- 
treated. In the British Isles the progress of Anglo-Norman 
feudalism and the partial dissolution of the tribal system 
often resulted in the aggravation and generalization of serf- 
dom among the Celtic populations of Scotland, Wales, and 
Ireland. In the Low Countries and in Aragon and Upper 
Catalonia serfs of the glebe still survived. In the latter 
regions the serfdom of divers classes of Christians called 
mezquinos, pageses de remensa, and of Moslems (ejaricos) 
was pushed to such a degree of severity that, even as late as 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the law recognized 
the right of their lords ‘‘ to treat them well or ill, according 
to their will’? (jus maltractand.). 

Though in the Iberian lands and in the two Sicilies Jews 
and Moslems were often favoured, given a certain autonomy 
and allowed rights of property, it also befell that some of them 
were reduced to the condition of serfs, subject to mainmorte. 
Even in France, although serfdom in general disappeared, 
islands of mainmorte still persisted in the Ile-de-France, the 
Toulouse country, Brittany, above all in the Dauphiné, 
Champagne, Lorraine, and a part of the centre. It is true 
that this serfdom, which fell upon the land and carried with 
it the payment of special succession duties, left the essential 
guarantees of civil liberty and of stability to the cultivator. 
But these milder forms of serfdom were limited to the most 
civilized countries. In most others the condition of the serfs 
continued to be very hard, although it is true that they were 
only a minority. There were even worse things than serfdom. 

258 


CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


In the Mediterranean regions of Spain, Italy, and France 
slavery was partly built up again by war and by commerce, 
although it never again attained its former proportions. 

Nevertheless, on the whole, it is undoubted that the 
material conditions of the rural classes improved greatly 
during these three centuries and a half. A fair number of 
peasants reached a condition of comfort, and some made 
fortunes. The majority, having gained the effective owner- 
ship of the soil, were able to profit by the rise in the price of 
agricultural produce and in the value of land, sometimes to 
a greater extent than the landowner, who was bound by 
customs which fixed the tenants’ payments, frequently com- 
muted into money, at invariable sums. It has been held 
that the censitaires—that is to say, the mass of the cultiva- 
tors in France—succeeded in taking two-thirds of the landed 
revenue for their own exclusive profit. The extension of the 
system of tenant-farming is an equal proof that the business 
of farming presented advantages which attracted peasants 
gifted with initiative, while the conditions of métayage seem 
to have made agrarian partnership a profitable system for 
those who preferred to employ their activity thus. 

As to the agricultural wage-earners, it is certain that a 
large number of them—for instance, the day labourers in 
Italy and Spain—were then classed among the poorest inhabi- 
tants of the countryside, even among the indigent. They 
usually, at least at first, received very low wages. In Tuscany, 
in the thirteenth century, they earned 2d. during the winter 
and 8d. during the summer, when they were hired by the 
day. In England they were paid from 1d. to 24d. for weeding 
and mowing, and from 6d. an acre for task work. For 
women the wage fell as low as a penny a day. But the day 
labourers soon profited by a continuous rise in the price of 
labour. In England about 1330 it had risen by about a 
fifth, and the labourers also received gratuities known as 
** courtesies.” In Poitou about 1307 the basket-bearers and 
labourers in the vineyards received 8d. to 9d. a day without 
board, and the wood-cutters 10d. to 12d. Wages had reached 
this average in France in the first half of the fourteenth 
century, whereas in the tenth century a harvester only earned 
a halfpenny. Thus the price of labour must have doubled 
before 1848. It then rose to between 3 sous and 2 sous and 

259 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


6 pence, almost half that of urban labour, and almost equiva- 
lent to the rural wage at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. The servants, more favoured still, for they were 
protected from unemployment, and provided with food, 
lodging, laundry, light, and a part of their clothing, earned 
in Catalonia and Roussillon from 25 to 75 sous a year, and in 
France, before 1348, from 5 to 7 fr. a year, as much, having 
regard to the value of money, as they earned in the first 
quarter of last century. 

The diminution in feudal warfare and brigandage as a 
result of monarchical government, and in the number of great 
famines, which were six times less numerous in France in 
the thirteenth century than in the tenth (10 as against 60), 
the absence of great economic crises in a society in which 
excessive competition did not yet play havoc, and the 
simplicity of life, all contributed to the growing well-being 
of the mass of the rural classes in the West. 

Never had the material existence of the peasants been so 
favourable, and to find such conditions again one must look 
onward to the middle of the nineteenth century. A multitude 
of new villages, townships, hamlets, homesteads, and farms 
sprang up, and a crowd of parishes. In France their number 
was unsurpassed for 500 years, and even diminished in certain 
parts during the centuries which followed. Here the 
peasants lived, sometimes in groups protected by hedges or 
walls of earth and rubble, furnished with watch-towers, 
sometimes scattered along the roads or in the midst of their 
fields, near their well or spring or pond and in the shelter of 
some valley or grove of trees. Their houses, made sometimes 
of wood and sometimes of mud, stones, or rubble, and occa- 
sionally of bricks, or even hollowed like caves out of the soft 
limestone hills, had usually but a single story, and were 
covered with thatch or tiles, destitute of window-panes and 
chimneys, dark, dirty, smoke-laden, esteemed of so little 
value that at the end of the tenth century a country cottage 
was only worth from 8 to 10 sous. The family was crowded 
together in a few rooms, hardly separate from the stables and 
barns. The furniture was scanty, and consisted of beds with 
straw mattresses, tables, stools, massive benches, a ‘** hutch ”’ 
or trunk, a box or coffer, and a collection of kitchen utensils 


260 


CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


made of earthenware, or of pewter or copper among the 
more prosperous. Nevertheless, in proportion as comfort 
spread, rural inventories bear witness to the appearance in 
rustic homes of a more considerable collection of utensils, 
and more comfortable furniture, of pewter pots, and even of 
silver plate. The peasant in this interior could only light 
himself by the aid of resin candles, or by more elementary 
procedures still; for a pound of tallow candles cost the price 
of a day’s work. But he warmed himself like a king, so 
abundant was wood and so low its price. 

He dressed simply in clothes made from the wool and 
flax which he raised upon his land, spun by his wife and 
daughters, and woven by himself or by the neighbouring 
village weaver. Usually he wore garments of linen cloth on 
weekdays, and, of course, woollens, or mixed wool and thread 
fabrics on Sundays; one of these coats cost him from 4 to 20 
sous. In the thirteenth century an ox-herd had a tunic 
valued at 8 sous and 4d. He often went barefoot, but when 
he wished to be shod he could have a pair of clogs or sabots 
for 7d. or 8d., and shoes, boots, or hose of cowhide or 
dressed leather for from 18d. to 4 sous (1825). In place of 
furs he used sheepskins, and the skins of rabbits, hares, and 
foxes. The peasant woman, however, was beginning to take 
care of her clothes and to own a few ornaments, and 
when they reached easier circumstances, the peasants 
took particular pride in the accumulation of body and 
household linen, to the great advantage of hygiene. 

The greatest improvement of all took place in their food. 
It become at least abundant and substantial, if not more 
varied. Besides vegetables, milk, cheese, and fruit, the 
peasant also ate rye and barley, and even wheaten bread in 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. To this he added 
a great deal of fresh and, still more, of salt fish, bacon, fresh 
-or salted pork, a little beef, mutton, and an increasing 
amount of poultry. In Flanders and England meat became 
enormously plentiful in the country districts. The villeins 
used few spices, but a great deal of salt; they had plenty 
of honey instead of sugar. In the countries of the north- 
west their drink was beer brewed from barley or corn, and 
ale; cider was as yet reserved for the poorest of the poor. 


261 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


In the French, German, and Latin countries the peasants 
drank a great deal of wine, and the consumption thereof 
spread far and wide in village taverns throughout the West. 

The peasant had for long retained such filthy habits that 
fabliauw were wont to assert that the smell of the dung-heap 
was his favourite scent, and to define the villein as *‘ a stink- 
ing creature, born from an ass’s dung.’’ But from the 
twelfth and still more from the thirteenth century, the 
custom of hot and cold baths spread in the country districts, 
and bath-tubs were often to be found in houses, and stews, 
or public baths, in the villages. Precautions were taken 
against contagious diseases by the foundation of large 
numbers of lazar-houses, which formed a fifth of the 
hospitals in England. Medicine and surgery spread to the 
country townships, where sworn surgeons, and sometimes 
even apothecaries, were often to be found in the fourteenth 
century. The rural folk of the West then appeared heavy 
and clumsy, ‘‘ ugly brutes,’’ as the satirists called them, but 
full of vigour, hardened by their open-air life and physical 
exercises ; often, as in England, France, and Flanders, over- 
flowing with a gross and sensual gaiety. 

The rural classes had also acquired in the new atmosphere 
of liberty and comfort a moral physiognomy, the character- 
istics of which gradually became more precise. They were 
not at all refined in their tastes, but they were cheerful and 
full of activity, loving the tavern, festivals, dancing, some- 
times also dicing and games of chance. They loved to 
listen to the tales and songs of minstrel or jongleur on the 
village green; on fair days they marvelled at the juggler 
and the charlatan; and they lent a greedy ear to the sermon 
of the wandering friar or the gossip of the pedlar, that living 
newspaper. From their servile past the peasants inherited 
habits of brutality, grossness, and dishonesty. Their 
sexual morality was low, and they had but slight respect 
for woman, in whom they saw only the mother of their 
children and the companion of their labours. They were 
miserly and avaricious, superstitious and credulous. But 
they had already acquired those social virtues which made 
them one of the regenerating forces of the medieval state. 
The classes which mocked and despised them owed it to 
these peasants that they never lacked the bread which they 

262 


CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES 


had not sown, and could live in idleness upon the fruits of 
a labour of which they were incapable. Attached heart 
and soul to the earth which nourished them, the peasants 
delivered it from sterility and made the soil of the West 
fertile by their sweat. 

Respecting religious authority without servility, they 
knew, on occasion, how to oppose a Church too much pre- 
occupied with temporal power. Little by little they awoke to 
the life of the mind, and their adroit and mocking wit made 
itself felt in Italy, France, the Low Countries, and Spain. 
The low-browed torpid creature depicted in the fabliaux 
soon learned to appreciate the benefits of education, some- 
times drove his children to school, and succeeded in 
emancipating his intelligence and reason. In certain 
countries, such as France, a spirit of sociability appeared 
among the country folk. Everywhere the peasant showed 
by innumerable works of poor relief how powerful was his 
sense of charity, while his vigorous sense of solidarity was 
manifest in the innumerable family communities and associa- 
tions for ploughing, cattle-rearing, and mutual protection 
which he formed. A rural élite even proved capable of 
generosity, devotion, bravery, and liberality, and more than 
one peasant showed himself at heart the equal of a gentle- 
man. These men acquired, notably in England and the 
Low Countries, a sense of their own value; ‘‘ The Flemish 
peasant,’’ ran one song, ‘* thinks that the world belongs to 
him when he is drunk.’’ Emerging from his humility, the 
villein reasoned, discussed, pleaded. A new force was born, 
of which medieval society did not, at first, suspect the 
power, but which, revealing itself by slow degrees, pro- 
foundly changed the Western world. It gave an irresistible 
impulse to material wealth and increased comfort and well- 
being. For the first time the multitudes who lived in the 
countryside knew not only freedom, but the sweetness of 
life. They endowed the society which emancipated them 
with the treasure of those rustic virtues—love of labour, 
economy, foresight, and energy—which established Western 
civilization upon the most solid foundations. 


263 


CHAPTER XI 


END OF THE ECONOMIC SUPREMACY OF BYZANTIUM IN THE EAST.—THE 
REGIME OF LABOUR AND ITS EVOLUTION IN THE SLAV, MAGYAR, 
ROUMANIAN, AND SCANDINAVIAN STATES (ELEVENTH TO FOURTEENTH 
CENTURIES). 


Durine the first six centuries of the Middle Ages it was the 
East Roman Empire which had been the great home of 
civilization and the chief centre of production of civilized 
peoples. But after the end of the eleventh century its role 
was ended and its supremacy passed to the West, the activity 
of which became preponderant and was exercised in precisely 
those regions in which Byzantine influence had before pre- 
dominated. 

Indeed, the East Roman Empire grew weaker and 
weaker ; it lost Southern Italy in the eleventh century ; then 
it lost Asia Minor, the chief reservoir of its soldiers, sailors, 
and wealth. It died slowly of inanition, despite the efforts 
of the new government of the Commeni, under which it 
had a last flash of brilliance in the twelfth century. But its 
weakness was already manifest, and little by little it was 
despoiled of the superiority which the strength of its 
political, administrative, financial, and military institutions 
had hitherto bestowed upon it. Overthrown by the Latins 
in 1204, and restored in 1261 by the Paleologi, it dragged 
out a long death-agony for 200 years. It no longer possessed 
either administration, or money, or an army, or even that 
moral unity which patriotism had once given to it. 

Social and economic power passed from the state to a 
feudal class of great landowners, bishops, and monks, who 
seized possession of the land. The imperial domains, which 
the Commeni succeeded in restoring for a brief moment, by 
means of confiscations, conquests, and the secularization of 
ecclesiastical possessions, soon fell into the hands of soldiers 
in the form of military benefices (pronoiai), or of the Church, 
by gifts, or even of the nobles. It was the latter who pre- 
vailed and who towards the end of the eleventh century 
formed themselves into a territorial feudal class analogous 

264 


END OF BYZANTINE SUPREMACY 


to that of the West. Formed by a fusion of the ancient 
territorial nobility with the new administrative nobility, this 
feudal class of archontes, dunatoi, sebastades, primates, and 
toparchs built up great domains in Greece, Macedonia, and 
Thrace, by means of concessions from the imperial treasury, 
usurpations at the expense of small free properties, inherit- 
ance, and purchase. By degrees they laid hands upon local 
government, surrounded themselves by a body of vassals 
(stratiotai, kaballarioi), and made themselves a nuisance to 
the state by their turbulent temper. Side by side with them 
the secular and monastic Church, eluding the imperial con- 
stitutions which sought to prevent the formation of estates 
in mortmain, grew rich by public and private gifts, by 
usurpations, and by the skill with which it cultivated its 
lands, until at the end of the twelfth century it was in pos- 
session of the major part of the landed wealth of the empire. 
Furthermore, the Church was exempt from most of the public 
taxes, and, having become richer than the state, obtained 
the right to exercise some of the attributes of government. 

On the other hand, that middle class of rural petits 
bourgeois and free peasants (chorites, eleutheroi, eutourgot, 
mesot), whose energetic labour had been one of the main 
strengths of the empire, disappeared, submerged beneath the 
flood of feudalism, after a struggle, which for a short time 
procured for it a certain local autonomy under elected heads 
(demogerontes, epitropoi, proestai, phylarchs) and the preser- 
vation of its common lands. In the thirteenth century the 
mass of the rural populations of the East Roman Empire 
were reduced to the condition of villeins (moteles), preserving 
personal liberty in dependence upon archontes, or, worse still, 
to that of serfs (paroikoi), fixed to the soil and bound to 
pay to the landowner a land tax (canon), a third of the 
harvest, and a succession duty of a third of their inheritance, 
and to furnish him with two days of labour weekly, without 
prejudice to the military service, the poll tax, and the other 
crushing requisitions of the state. At the very moment when 
the villeins of the West were rising to liberty and well-being, 
those of the East were falling into an abyss of servitude and 
misery ; they became those mournful herds over whose in- 
different heads so many different dominations came, held 
their brief sway, and passed away. 

265 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


As long as the central power remained fairly strong—that 
is, until the twelfth century—this social retrogression had 
little effect upon agricultural production, which continued to 
be abundant. Cattle-raising, the cultivation of cereals, vines, 
fruit-trees and industrial plants, remained flourishing for 
another hundred years. Travellers such as Edrisi and 
Benjamin of Tudela still vaunt the abundance “‘ of all kinds 
of natural products’? in Romania. But the prosperity of 
the countryside did not survive the troublous times which 
followed the end of the dynasty of the Commeni, and the 
wars which set the empire at grips with Latins, Bulgars, and 
Turks. In the thirteenth century the state, which had been 
the envy of the West, became an object of contempt and 
pity to its rivals, and its soil was no longer able to suffice 
even for the needs of a decimated population. 

In the preceding century it still had a numerous urban 
bourgeoisie and an active industry. Byzantium was still the 
wonder of the world, the centre of wealth and of splendour, 
whose brilliance the Crusaders were not slow to admire, 
wherein were heaped up, in the words of Villehardoin, “all 
the riches of the world.’’ Salonica, although sacked in 1185, 
still seemed to this country baron ‘“‘ one of the strongest and 
richest towns in all Christendom.’’ But these were the last 
gleams of a great fire, which burned lower from century to 
century. Soon the industries of the West took its old 
lucrative monopolies from the East. The old corporations, 
once the strength of the commercial and industrial classes, 
became a prey to the suspicions of imperial despotism and 
disappeared. Economic activity was ruined by the exactions 
of the treasury and by foreign competition. 

Trade passed completely into the hands of Venetians, 
Genoese, Pisans, Catalans, and the traders of Provence 
and Languedoc. Italy, wrote Nicelas, ‘‘is penetrating 
Byzantium with spread sails.’? After the restoration of the 
Paleologi, Genoa became the real mistress of trade, in com- — 
petition with Venice. ‘‘ She shuts all trade routes to the 
Romans,’’ observes a Byzantine historian. In the towns, 
as at Salonica and Adrianople, intestine struggles set the 
artisans in conflict with the rich, and social war completed 
the ruin of urban prosperity. The empire, which had for a 
space held ‘‘ two-thirds of all the wealth of the world ”’ and 

266 


END OF BYZANTINE SUPREMACY 


the economic hegemony thereof, lost both its wealth and its 
supremacy in less than 200 years. 

It was the West which supplanted it as the leader of 
civilization. French barons carried the feudal régime of the 
West into Romania, the Archipelago, and Greece. For a 
brief space in the thirteenth century they revived the 
material prosperity of Achaia, but they did not succeed in 
rescuing those regions from anarchy, and as a rule they 
precipitated their ruin. 3 

Nevertheless, in Central and Eastern Europe the civilizing 
mission of the West, sometimes taking up and continuing 
that of the East, obtained better results. In the eleventh 
century the Slav, Roumanian, and Magyar peoples who in- 
habited these vast countries had, for the most part, not yet 
emerged out of barbarism, or left behind the stage of primi- 
tive economy. They lived by the chase, by fishing, and by 
cattle-raising ; agriculture was little developed among them, 
and they knew only the most elementary forms of trade. In 
general they possessed no towns. Some, such as the Serbs, 
the Bulgars, the Russians, and the Vlachs or Roumanians, 
had been converted by Byzantium and had undergone its 
influence, to which, from the twelfth century onwards, was 
added that of the West. Others, such as the Magyars, 
Croats, Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles, had received Christianity 
from Western apostles, and it was under the auspices of the 
West that they were won to a civilized existence. Greek 
missionaries and merchants spread far and wide in the 
Balkans, and French monks, Italian merchants, above all, 
a crowd of colonists, artisans, soldiers, and traders of German 
origin, penetrated Central Europe. 

Byzantine colonization assisted the Bulgarians and the 
Southern Slavs to exploit their natural resources, but 
Western colonization far surpassed it in activity and 
influence. It was thanks to these Western settlers, who 
came in crowds from Germany and the Low Countries, and 
thanks also to the French monks, that Bohemia, Moravia, 
Slovenia, Hungary, Transylvania, Poland, Lithuania, 
Prussia, and Livonia began the great work of clearance and 
population which was the outstanding event in the history 
of these regions during this period of the Middle Ages. 
Summoned by kings, bishops, and abbeys, thousands of 

267 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


energetic Western peasants, often accompanied by officials 
(ministeriales) or country gentlemen in search of estates, 
and clerks in search of benefices, cleared forests, drained 
marshes, and founded a multitude of villages or ‘**‘ new 
towns.’’? Unhappily they did not intermingle with the in- 
digenous population; they obtained for themselves not only 
freedom, but the recognition of privileges which were often 
exorbitant, and it was not long before they came to be 
looked upon as parasites—*‘ lice,’? as the Czechs called the 
German colonists. Sometimes they even extirpated the 
previous inhabitants, who were still pagans, by sword and 
famine, as in Prussia, or enslaved them, as in the Baltic 
provinces. Nevertheless, their example usually acted as a 
stimulus to the peoples in whose midst they established 
themselves. Thus in the south, Slavs and Bulgars colonized 
Macedonia; Vlachs or Roumanians the Danube plain; 
Magyars Upper Hungary and several cantons of Transyl- 
vania, an ancient Celto-Latin country; Poles colonized the 
plains which stretched between the Oder and the Vistula and 
Dnieper, and between the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea; 
and the Russians began their expansion to the east and 
north, at the expense of Finnish tribes. This obscure work, 
often unrecognized in traditional history, brought about by 
slow degrees the economic transformation of Eastern Europe. 

To the elementary forms of agricultural production, the 
fisheries, the hunting of furred beasts, the raising of large 
and small live-stock, which remained predominant in these 
regions, colonization made possible the addition of a more 
considerable amount of corn-growing, which prospered in 
Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Prussia, and also the culti- 
vation of vines and fruit-trees, introduced and developed 
among the southern Slavs, the Magyars, and the Czechs, and 
of the industrial plants—flax and hemp—which received a 
new and vigorous impulse. Population increased, particu- 
larly in the Elbe and Danube lands, to such an extent that 
in the thirteenth century it was almost as dense there as in 
the Germanic countries. Commerce developed in proportion 
as the states were organized and the conditions of order and 
security necessary to trade realized. Merchants from East 
and West were attracted and encouraged by privileges. A 
metal coinage appeared. Jews organized credit, and in their 

268 


END OF BYZANTINE SUPREMACY 


wake came Italians, who founded banking-houses in some of 
these countries. The great river routes of the Elbe, Oder, 
Vistula, Dnieper, and Danube were utilized for transport. 
Itinerant traders multiplied, and great caravans initiated the 
peoples of Eastern Europe into international trade at the 
fairs which were organized at Leipzig, Frankfort-on-Oder, 
Breslau, Prague, Cracow, Kiev, and Novgorod. The land 
routes once more took on their ancient activity, especially in 
the south. The two Roman roads which joined the Adriatic 
regions to the Archipelago and the Sea of Marmora were 
once more put into working order by the Serbian Empire, 
and, above all, by the Slav trading republic of Ragusa. They 
were provided with courier services and depéts or ‘‘ fac- 
tories.”” In the centre there lay open the great road which 
unites Northern Germany, by way of Bohemia and Hungary, 
to the East. Commercial centres sprang up in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries ; such were Prague, Budapest, Vrali- 
slav (Breslau), Gdansk (Danzig), Cracow, Riga, Pololsk, 
Novgorod the Great, which numbered 100,000 souls and 190 
counting-houses, Kiev, which rivalled Constantinople with 
its 400 churches, its eight markets, and its counting-houses, 
and, finally, Ragusa in the south. Between these new lands 
and the states of the East and the West they established 
active relations, based upon the exchange of natural products 
against manufactured goods. 

Side by side with the primitive forms of industrial 
activity, domestic and family industry, more progressive 
forms were introduced into those lands newly opened to 
civilization, under the influence of the Westerners and the 
Byzantines, and the workshops of master craftsmen began 
to appear in the newly risen urban centres, as well as a great 
capitalistic industry in the mineral districts. Miners and 
foreign capitalists, chiefly German, Italian, and Ragusan, 
undertook the exploitation of the argentiferous lead-mines of 
Serbia, Bosnia, and Hungary, and the seams of mercury and 
copper of Rascia, the silver and tin of Bohemia, the iron, 
copper, and calamine of the Serbian, Czech, and Polish lands, 
and the salt-pans of Transylvania and Greater Poland. They 
created the first metallurgical businesses in Serbia, Silesia, 
Moravia, and Bohemia. Byzantine, French, and Italian 
artists came to initiate these peoples into building and 

269 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


industrial arts. But neither commerce nor this growing 
industry was on a sufficiently large scale to give urban 
economy an impulse at all comparable to that which it had 
received in the Eastern Empire and in the West. 

Eastern Europe remained, above all else, a great zone in 
which agricultural economy prevailed, and in which towns 
were little more than fortified posts with the appearance of 
large villages. It was on the great trade routes alone that 
there grew up the first urban centres destined to have a 
brilliant future, such as Ragusa, Pesth, Prague, Breslau, 
Dantzig, Riga, Novgorod, and Warsaw (founded in the thir- 
teenth century), Kénigsberg and Limburg, Kiev, and, finally, 
Moscow, the outpost of Europe, founded in the twelfth 
century. The urban bourgeoisie in these regions was neither 
important nor influential, whether because of its foreign 
origin or because of the narrow scope of action of the towns. 
It remained, as has been said of Poland, like ‘** drops of oil ”’ 
scattered over the vast ocean of rural population. 

Nevertheless, the transformation in the political and 
economic life of these countries brought about profound 
changes in their social organization. It accelerated the dis- 
appearance of collective tribal property among the majority 
of the peoples, and led to an alteration in the old communal 
family property. If the latter survived as a social frame- 
work, with its characteristic traits of labour in common, the 
equal partition of produce, and the authority of the chiefs, 
nevertheless its land ceased to be inalienable and indivisible. 
Its acquisitions could be alienated, and the right of dividing, 
selling, even of giving away the immovable wealth of the 
family, and the land itself, was recognized, as was testa- 
mentary disposition and the succession of women, in the 
absence of male heirs. Private property increased at its 
expense and at the expense of tribal property. Kings and 
princes hastened to build up vast domains for themselves, 
peopled with cultivators; they appropriated the major part 
of the forests and wastelands, and claimed possession of the 
mineral subsoil; but they could not preserve their landed 
possessions from usurpation and alienation. The Church, by 
means of gifts, colonization, and purchase, patiently built 
up immense territorial possessions, comprising in certain 
countries, such as Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Russia, 

270 


END OF BYZANTINE SUPREMACY 


a half or two-thirds of the soil. A nobility was organized, in 
general neither close nor hereditary, made up of old tribal 
chieftains on the one hand, and rich landowners, officials, 
soldiers, and the companions of princes on the other. It 
approached with increasing closeness in the Balkan countries 
to the organization of the Byzantine nobility, and in the rest 
of Kurope, even in Russia, to the institutions of Western 
feudalism. It had its allewx and its fiefs, its domains which 
resembled the English manor, the French seigneurie, or the 
German grundherrschaft, and which were divided up into 
holdings cultivated by the labour of peasants. 

The small free property and the class of peasant small- 
holders, which had been so important in these regions before 
the thirteenth century, fell under the domination of these 
new powers, the Crown, the Church, and the feudal lords. 
The dependence of this class, either under the form of the 
Byzantine colonate or that of the Western villeinage, left the 
cultivator his personal liberty and the perpetual usufruct of 
the soil, but took from him his property in the land and 
submitted him to poll tax, rents and labour services. Such 
was the condition of the rural masses known as meropsi and 
kmetons among the Serbs, Slovenes, Poles, and Czechs, 
drabans in Roumania, udvornici in Hungary, and moujiks 
and smerdes in Russia. A part of the vanquished or im- 
poverished population was even reduced to serfdom, under 
the influence of aristocratic ideas of German or Byzantine 
origin. In Bulgaria, Serbia, and Slovenia the obrotsi, atroesi, 
and pariki were assimilated to the Byzantine paroikot. In 
Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and Russia serfdom made con- 
tinual strides from the thirteenth century onwards. Though, 
under the sway of Christian ideas and a better understanding 
of economic interests, rural slavery disappeared completely 
in Croatia and became rare in Hungary, Bohemia, and 
Poland, it survived and was even extended in the more 
backward lands, such as Lithuania and Russia. 

In the south and centre, among the Serbs, Moldavians, 
Croats, Czechs, and Poles, the rural population, scattered in 
hamlets and villages, profited in part, though far less than 
in the West, from the advantages of colonization and the 
diffusion of Christian civilization. In the East, in Russia, 
they remained in a condition not far removed from Asiatic 

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barbarism. Everywhere epidemics and more frequent 
famines, and the rude conditions of social life which still 
persisted, made their existence unstable and hard, although 
its uncertainty was lessened by the powerful solidarity main- 
tained by the old communal institutions of family and 
village. 

In the north of Europe the three Scandinavian states did 
not begin to make acquaintance with civilized life until the 
tenth and eleventh centuries, when they were converted 
to Christianity. Before this time their inhabitants, the 
Northmen, were divided into a number of tribes and con- 
federations, and lived chiefly by piracy. Their economic and 
social organization differed little from that of the ancient 
Germans, their brothers by race. Like these, they practised 
agriculture hardly at all, and their principal resources came 
from fishing, hunting, the exploitation of their forests, 
and cattle-raising. One part of the soil belonged to the 
tribes, and another to village communities, which enjoyed 
the undivided land in common. Private property was limited 
to the family ; each family group held in collective ownership 
an odhal, inalienable and transmissible only to males, which 
was made up of its own property and acquisitions, and 
comprised only a house (topt), with the enclosure round it, 
and the land (ornum) acquired by clearance. In Denmark 
each of these patriarchal domains usually comprised about 
thirty-six acres. The rest of the land, which devolved to 
each family, was composed of a number of parcels, long and 
narrow strips, which the village community divided annually 
by a sort of system of lot, and the size of which was 
measured by the throw of a hammer or axe, or else by means 
of a cord. In one such village in Sweden twenty families 
thus divided among themselves 5,600 lots of land. Round 
each village (by) stretched pastures and forests. 

An energetic population of freemen, sailors, fishermen, 
herds, woodmen, cattle-raisers, and farmers lived upon this 
vast and half-empty stretch of territory, a great part of 
which was covered with wood, marsh, and heath, under a 
severe climate. There were little more than a million in- 
habitants in the whole area, which was twice as large as 
France. Denmark, the most populous part, contained 
550,000 in the eighth century and 900,000 in the tenth. The 

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_ greater number were freemen, of whom there were 200,000 
in Denmark in the ninth century, holding 12,000 domains. 
They were by nature fierce and disinclined for labour, living 
by warfare or the chase, and they recognized no superior 
authority save that of kings, tribal chiefs (jarls), nobles 
(adelings), rich landowners, and the comitatus of warriors 
(huskarls, landemen), princes who possessed no privileges 
and who were distinguished from the ordinary freemen only 
by wealth, tradition, or function. The cultivation of the land 
and the raising of cattle was left to slaves, descendants 
of the aboriginal populations, prisoners of war, condemned 
criminals, or insolvent debtors. The Scandinavians had for 
long lived in a state of barbarism, aggravated by the blood- 
thirsty religion of Odin. The terror of Christian Europe, 
these piratical ‘‘sea kings’’ had carried destruction and 
death from the Dnieper to the coasts of Spain. They had 
formed new settlements in the tenth century in Western 
Europe and Russia. Finally, they created the first stable 
states of the north, the three kingdoms of Sweden, Norway, 
and Denmark. 

In adopting Christianity, not without difficulty, they came 
under the influence of Western civilization, which was 
brought to them by the Anglo-Saxons, the Germans, and 
the French monastic Orders. The first benefit reaped from 
this evolution was the conquest of the soil by colonization. 
Under the impulse of princes and monks, bands of peasants 
set themselves to protect the low-lying coasts of Zeeland and 
Jutland by dykes, to drain marshes and convert them into 
meadows, and to establish fisheries and water-mills on the 
rivers. On all sides monastic colonies and village communi- 
ties attacked the immense Scandinavian forest, and estab- 
lished grass farms with huge herds of cows, isolated domains 
in which pioneers settled—above all, in the north and east— 
and villages of colonists, Danish thorpes, Norwegian sceters, 
Swedish bodas. The Danish plain, Jutland, Zeeland, Fuh- 
nen, Southern Sweden, Skaania, Ostrogothia, Nericia, Verm- 
land, and Upland were the first to be colonized, and were 
soon covered with meadows and ploughlands. 

The Norwegian and Swedish pioneers penetrated reso- 
lutely into the central and southern regions—Svealand, Dale- 
earlia, Norrland, and Finmark—the home before the tenth 

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century of wandering tribes of Finns and Lapps, whom they 
now drove before them. Through the great forest—first 
along the coast and then inland—were scattered their cattle- 
farms and their camps of woodcutters. Soon, in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries, the Danes even sent warlike agri- 
cultural colonies to swarm over the lands of the Obotrite 
Slavs in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania, and among — 
the Esthonians on the eastern shores of the Baltic. On their 
side, the Swedes colonized the Aaland Islands, Ingria, Carelia, 
and Finland, where they established villages of free peasants ; 
and the Norwegians scattered fishing stations all along the 
Biarmic coast as far as the White Sea. 

At the same time they exploited the resources of lakes, 
rivers, and seas, caught the eider-duck, the whale, the cod, 
and the seal in the north, and salmon and herring in the 
Baltic. From their forests, which were still abundant in 
spite of clearances, they obtained timber, pitch, tar, potash, 
ashes, and the furs of wild beasts, with which they supplied 
the West. Model farms were created, notably on the Cis- 
tercian estates, and cattle-breeding was improved. Denmark 
bred strong battle palfreys and draught horses, as well as 
horned cattle, and so also did Sweden and Norway. Like 
England, Scandinavia was one of the most active centres for 
the exportation of butter, cheese, fats, lard, grease, and 
strong hides. Even the ploughlands made some progress in 
spite of extensive methods—the triennial fallow, the com- 
pulsory rotation of crops and cultivation in common. The 
use of farm manure and peat became more general; the iron 
ploughshare and the practice of ploughing deep appeared. 
Southern Sweden, particularly Skaania and Denmark, pro- 
duced rye, oats, barley, and corn. The Cistercians intro- 
duced horticulture and perfected aboriculture. Flax, hemp, 
and hops were cultivated over wider areas. 

A regular trade now appeared, and in the twelfth century 
a money economy ; from the eleventh century Denmark had 
struck silver coins (the rivdales), in imitation of Germany. 
But movable wealth was comparatively small, and credit 
rare and expensive; the legal rate of interest in the thirteenth 
century still varied between 103 and 203 per cent. Never- 
theless, roads were established and internal navigation was 
organized. An active national marine was created in Den- 

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mark and Norway, and, before it was crushed by the 
Hanseatic monopoly, Scandinavian trade reigned supreme 
in the Baltic and in the seas and glacial ocean of the north. 
It even established direct relations with the West and the 
Levant. 

_ In the néwly founded towns—Trondhjem (997), Bergen, 
Copenhagen (1168), Roskild, Odense, Lund, Wisby (the great 
port of Gothland) Stockholm (thirteenth century), Calmar, 
Norrképing, Abo—workshops and associations of artisans 
arose, and likewise merchant gilds on the German model, 
over and above the old family and domestic industry. The 
first metallurgical industries, in the shape of small forges, 
were created in Sweden, beside the seams of copper 
and iron, which were uncovered and worked by Scandinavian 
and German miners in Dalecarlia. Finally, France gave to 
the Scandinavian states their first architects and the pro- 
moters of their industrial arts. 

Nevertheless, Scandinavia, like Eastern Europe, remained 
primarily a region in which natural economy held sway. 
Private property, it is true, soon took the place of collective 
property, and the tribes lost their undivided lands, while 
those belonging to the village community diminished by dint 
of alienations, partitions under definite titles of possession, and 
the appropriations which followed upon clearances. Family 
property itself could be divided among co-heirs, even women. 
Nevertheless, by reason of the vast extent of forests and 
uncultivated lands, common lands remained numerous and 
comprised about half the soil of Sweden and Norway. Kings 
built up large domains for themselves and claimed the 
ownership of fisheries and mines. The secular and monastic 
Church got possession of the greater part of the appropriated 
soil. One archbishop of Lund alone possessed three-quarters 
of Bornholm and the district of Aarrhus. A nobility was 
constituted on the model of Germanic chivalry, provided 
itself with fiefs, sought to make itself hereditary, and seized 
a large part of the land. 

Nevertheless, it did not succeed in eliminating the class 
of small peasant owners, who remained numerous and in- 
fluential until the fourteenth century, except in Denmark and 
Skaania, where they fell into a condition analogous to that 
of villeins, and sometimes amalgamated with the ex-slaves, 

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LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


whom Christianity had freed. In the same way tenant-farmers 
and free day labourers made their appearance. Under this 
régime the Scandinavian countries were able to attain a 
certain degree of prosperity. Their material condition im- 
proved ; there were few paupers among them, and population 
grew ;.it almost doubled in Denmark, where in the country 
districts alone in the middle of the thirteenth century it 
numbered as many as 1,500,000 souls, and in the six 
bishoprics of Sweden in 1320 it reached the figure of 384,000. 
A crowd of new villages (thorpes) were created side by side 
with the old bys, apart from the isolated farms (gaardes) 
and chalets (saétters). Up to the fourteenth century the rural 
masses of Scandinavia, whose life was rough and simple, 
seem to have enjoyed a certain ease of existence and fairly 
extensive local liberties. Family life remained powerful, and 
associations of all kinds—religious, charitable, and economic 
—multiplied. Without attaining as great a height of 
development as the West, Scandinavia, like Eastern Europe, 
reached, under the beneficent influence of Latin, Germanic, 
and Christian civilization, a degree of prosperity unknown 
to it in the barbarian period, and not even equalled in 
modern times. 

Thus in the history of labour the first three centuries and a 
half of the Middle Ages is one of those capital periods during 
which some of the most important works of progress which 
have transformed human societies were accomplished. The 
work of Ancient Rome herself and of all antiquity had been 
surpassed. In the East, North, Centre, and West of Europe 
the barbarian world had been conquered and civilized by 
means of the combined action of Christianity and of the 
new civilization of the West. After the first feudal age, a 
necessary marking time, in order that the military structure 
of medieval society might be organized and that it might be 
preserved from a renewed offensive by the invaders, after 
two centuries, in which the aristocratic and clerical castes 
had monopolized landownership, made villeinage and serfdom 
general, and submitted the rural population to the yoke of 
a dearly purchased protection, the dawn of a renaissance 
had shone upon Christendom, at length emerged from its 
isolation. 

The great stream of trade had begun to flow again, more 
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ample than before. An immense commercial development 
had brought with it the appearance of a money economy, 
the transformation of industry, and the formation of a 
bourgeoisie and an urban civilization. The commercial and 
industrial classes had, for the first time, united to conquer 
liberty and even privileges for themselves. For the first time 
the labouring masses had won for themselves a place in 
society worthy of their social value and economic role. They 
had become real powers, strong in their associations and 
had attained a degree of independence and comfort hitherto 
unknown. On the other hand, it had been necessary to 
exploit the soil to its utmost, and parallel with the grand 
work of the industrial and commercial renaissance, accom- 
panied as it was by the emancipation of the urban popula- 
tions, had gone that magnificent labour of agricultural 
colonization and the liberation of the rural classes which 
changed the face of Europe. 

The greater production of wealth had allowed the number 
of human settlements to be vastly increased. Christian 
Europe had been so effectively renewed at the beginning of 
the fourteenth century that its people grew and multiplied 
and everywhere founded towns and villages, while popula- 
tion, double what it had been in the European provinces of 
the Roman Empire, had reached the figure of sixty to seventy 
millions. Never in the whole history of labour had such far- 
reaching results been obtained by the work of man. Then 
was seen the spectacle, unimagined by all the generations 
which had gone before, of multitudes of free human 
beings, enjoying the rights of man, and breathing a 
new air of liberty, whetting their energies by the conquest 
of independence and by the play of their multifarious activity, 
developing all the resources of their strength and initiative, 
and, above all, tasting the joy and sweetness of life, in the 
framework of an existence which was still simple enough to 
escape the economic uncertainties of modern society. 


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BOOK III 


CHAPTER I 


POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND DEMOGRAPHICAL DISTURBANCES AT THE CLOSE 
OF THE MIDDLE AGES, AND THE BIRTH OF A NATIONAL ECONOMY 
(1340-1458). 


Durinc the last century of the Middle Ages, between 
the beginning and end of the Hundred Years’ War, a new 
Europe was created in the throes of long and painful birth- 
pangs. The different nationalities hurled themselves against 
each other from West to East, and grew strong by dint of 
their violent struggles. In the East and South-East, Asiatic 
barbarism once more began its assaults upon Christendom, 
and submerged a large part of Eastern Europe. Civil and 
religious wars increased the confusion and added their evils 
to those brought about by the conflicts of peoples and races. 
At the same time the political and social forces of the past 
broke up. The Church, corrupted by wealth and weakened 
by heresy, shut itself up in its selfishness and resigned itself 
to the réle of a parasite, abandoning the leadership of the 
Christian commonwealth and ceasing to promote economic 
' progress. Everywhere feudalism showed itself more and 
more devoid of the qualities indispensable to the art of 
government, and able only to renew and _ perpetuate 
anarchy. It lost its military prestige at Crécy, Poitiers, 
Nicopolis and Agincourt, and in the Hussite wars. It be- 
came a mere court nobility, vowed to the service of princes, 
and lived henceforth only by exploiting its tenants, or, worse 
still, by rapine and brigandage. 

The urban bourgeoisie, the power of which grew in the 
Low Countries and Central and Northern Italy in the four- 
teenth century and in Germany until the end of the 
fifteenth, showed a superior political sense. But the 
municipal government was no longer able to give adequate 
protection to the various groups under its shelter. More- 
over, communal patriotism waned in the midst of the social 
struggles which were now let loose, and urban prosperity was 
often menaced. The horizon of town life narrowed, and the 

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LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


commune, which had been in the preceding period the 
standard-bearer of emancipation and progress, finally be- 
came an agent of particularism and tyranny in the realm 
of economic activity, opposing by its spirit of exclusiveness, 
monopoly, and excessive regulation the development of new 
and larger societies. 

In place of the old dying feudal economy, and above the 
decaying urban economy, a national economy was organized 
and developed. Its framework was the monarchical or 
princely state, in which were merged the old local sovereign- 
ties. With much uncertain groping, under the influence of 
the maxims of Roman Law, and impelled by the pressure of 
necessity, the state became conscious of its rights and of 
its duties towards the community, especially in the West. 
In the Low Countries, France, Italy, Spain, England, and 
at times even in other parts of Europe, sovereigns showed 
themselves possessed of an economic policy, sometimes in- 
coherent, but every day more active. Their power and 
prestige often depended upon the manner in which they 
carried it out. The Italian princes, the dukes of Burgundy, 
certain of the Valois kings, such as Charles V, owed some 
part of their popularity and their ascendancy to it. This 
policy had for its object the increase of national wealth, 
the expansion of all kinds of business enterprises, and the 
satisfaction of popular needs. It sought to maintain a due 

roportion between production and consumption, to stimu- 

late the one and to supply the needs of the other. In order 
to accomplish this the royal- power essayed to establish 
centralized institutions, to rely upon the support of the 
middle classes, and to submit Church, feudal nobles, and 
communes to its authority, despoiling them of their economic 
prerogatives or bringing them under its own control. Not 
only did it attempt to maintain or restore order and public 
peace by creating administrative machinery, law-courts, 
finances, and regular armies, but it also intervened more 
or less continuously, and with more or less happy results, 
in the organization of production and in the relations of 
the labouring classes. 

It lent its support to agricultural colonization, to works 
of embankment and drainage, and to the destruction of 
wild beasts, as may be seen in the history of Spain, Italy, 

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AGE OF REVOLUTIONS 


the Low Countries, France, and Portugal. It was at pains 
to preserve by protective legislation natural wealth such as 
waters and forests, preventing their wasteful exploitation 
and encouraging the clearance of wasteland and the immigra- 
tion of cultivators. In one place it tried to develop cattle- 
raising, as in Spain, and in another rich crops, such as rice 
in Italy ; everywhere it encouraged the production of cereals. 
In the Low Countries the princes of the house of Burgundy 
favoured the spread of rural industries, and protected them 
against the intolerance of the towns. Anxious to maintain 
an abundant supply of labour and low prices in the country 
districts, the sovereigns helped landed proprietors against 
the flight and the exactions of agricultural wage-earners by 
measures of taxation and coercion. At the same time they 
favoured the emancipation of serfs (for example, in Spain) 
and almost everywhere they made meritorious efforts to 
prevent the restoration of serfdom. 

Everywhere royal legislation forbade the seizure of 
ploughshares and beasts of labour, sometimes even of the 
seed and provisions necessary for the subsistence of the 
peasant. Often it granted temporary exemption from 
taxation to cultivators in order to encourage their efforts. 
The monarchical state sought to establish a protection over 
the rural masses, which should preserve them from the 
excesses of its own agents and, above all, of the old feudal 
powers. Charles V (the Wise) in France went as far as to 
permit the peasants to beat those royal officials who tried 
to exercise the right of purveyance of carts and fodder 
without payment. In Bohemia Charles IV invited all 
peasants who had suffered wrong by seigniorial exactions | 
to bring their complaints to him, under the guarantee of his 
protection. The royal power began to exercise a control 
over excessive tolls and labour services. It allowed the 
country folk to claim their stolen commons from the lords 
and to have recourse to royal justice against feudal abuses. 
Nevertheless, it was careful to maintain the essential pre- 
rogatives of the privileged social classes ; its economic policy 
was not at all revolutionary; it was even, as a rule, timid 
and hesitating, so intent was it upon maintaining a sort of 
unstable equilibrium between its different classes of subjects, 
between the spirit of tradition and the spirit of progress. 

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LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


The same principles also informed the rising national 
economy in the domain of industry and commerce. To 
increase the resources of the state, by augmenting the pro- 
duction of the workshops and the circulation of manufac- 
tures, to maintain the authority of the central power over 
the trading and working classes, while at the same time 
seconding their efforts and endowing them with privileges, 
these were the motives with which sovereigns were inspired. 
In the majority of states, the princes took the initiative 
in the reorganization or creation of industries, they supported 
the exploitation of mineral wealth and the establishment of 
metallurgical works. They called in from abroad entrepre- 
neurs or workers who could introduce new industrial 
specialities, such as silks in France, fine cloths in England, 
and the manufacture of mixed fabrics of silk and wool in 
Italy. Under their protection glass and porcelain works 
were organized, and, above all, the artistic and luxury 
industries, to which they lent an intelligent patronage, 
notably in the Italian states, France, the Low Countries, 
and Bohemia. Without entirely removing the control of 
industry from the old powers and, in particular, from the 
towns, the monarchical state brought the concession of 
statutes to crafts and the promulgation of economic regula- 
tions into increasing subordination to its authority. Some- 
times, in order to overcome the abuses of the corporative 
monopolies, it decreed freedom of profession and authorized 
any capable artisan to establish himself and ‘‘ do loyal work 
or merchandise,’’ as John the Good of France expressed it 
in his ordinance of 1851, and Richard IT of England in that 
of 13894; at other times, on the contrary, after periods of 
crisis, it provoked and encouraged the formation of 
privileged corporations, in order to favour the re-establish- 
ment of production. It even began to arrogate to itself the 
right of authorizing artisans to work independently outside 
the bounds of the corporation, by virtue of royal letters of 
mastership. It brought under its control-the whole world 
of workers, free crafts and sworn corporations, regulated 
their organization and_ discipline, superintended their 
administration and police, imposed governors upon them 
at need, and submitted them to fiscal and military obliga- 
tions. Representing the general interest, it forced industry 

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AGE OF REVOLUTIONS 


and commerce to observe rules of manufacture and sale, 
intervened, if necessary, to forbid coalitions of masters, 
rings and monopolies, as well as unions and fraternities of 
workers, and fixed wages and prices. Thus there grew 
daily stronger a sort of unconscious state socialism, the 
manifestations of which were to increase enormously in the 
course of the modern period. 

No less anxious for the progress of trade than for that 
of production, the royal power showed a more or less 
effective zeal to secure the position of both. It encouraged by 
grants of privilege the formation of commercial associa- 
tions, such as the wholesale mercers and the merchants who 
frequented the River Loire in France, the Staplers and 
Merchant Adventurers in England, and the Hansards in 
Germany. Torn between aristocratic prejudices and the 
national interest, the princes sometimes forbade the nobles to 
take up commerce, and sometimes (as under the Valois kings) 
authorized them to do so. In general, they were so well 
aware of the power of the merchant class that they often 
associated it with the government. They dimly descried 
an economic policy, the principles and direction of which 
they could not yet distinguish very clearly. They under- 
stood the need for a strong organization of credit, and yet 
they bowed to popular prejudices and to the antiquated 
suggestions of the canon law, and sometimes prohibited 
loans at interest, which were confounded with usury, and 
took measures of intermittent severity against Jews and 
Lombards. 

They guessed sometimes, as did Charles V of France, 
the English Plantagenets, and the Dukes of Burgundy, how 
great was the advantage of a stable coinage, yet they 
occasionally gave way to the deceptive temptations of the 
old fiscal ideas, and tried to make money by debasing the 
coinage, as John the Good did eighteen times in a single 
year. In general, they tried to realize the ideal of a single 
coinage and to prevent the export of precious metals and 
of the currency, to regulate exchanges, and to introduce a 
little order into the chaos of feudal economy. Similarly, 
they attempted to ordain uniform weights and measures, 
notably in France and England. They saw the necessity 
of maintaining and improving roads, and made roadmaking 

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LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


and road preservation one of the essential prerogatives of the 
central power. They favoured inland navigation and com- 
panies for river transport, laid an axe to the sprouting 
vegetation of seigniorial tolls, conceived the first idea of 
a public service of bridges and highways, and in Italy, 
Germany, and France at the end of the Middle Ages even 
inaugurated public posts and passenger services. 

Inexperienced and hesitating, the royal commercial policy 
picked its way between prohibition, protection, privileges, 
and monopolies on the one hand, and free competition on 
the other. Yet if the intervention of the state in the 
mechanism of trade remained narrow and irritating, in- 
coherent and contradictory, it did have the merit that it 
favoured the creation and prosperity of markets and fairs, 
of merchant marines and navies, and opened foreign 
markets by means of commercial treaties, attracting 
merchant strangers, and giving a fruitful impulse to com- 
mercial relations. 

The national economy was nevertheless unable to bear 
all its fruits in the midst of the political and social crisis in 
which the whole of Europe was struggling, and to which 
there was added a severe crisis in population. The latter 
was brought about by the massacres provoked by the great 
wars which were then bleeding Christendom white, by the 
ravages of bands of brigands, and by the excesses of religious 
fanaticism. Famines reappeared more frequently than ever 
in the devastated regions. Those of 13843, in Austria, and 
of 1851, 1859, and 1418, in France, left particularly terrible 
memories behind. The last carried off over 100,000 persons 
in Paris, where groups of twenty or thirty poor wretches 
at a time died of starvation on the dung-heaps, and where 
wolves came to devour the corpses. Earthquakes shook the 
ground, and one of them, in 1347-48, destroyed Villach and 
thirty little townships of Carinthia, while in the Nether- 
lands the sea redoubled its murderous assaults. But worst 
of all were the ravages of epidemic maladies, leprosy, and 
typhus, which raged among the masses, who were already 
weak from want and wretchedness. 

The most famous of these epidemics, the Black Death, 
or bubonic plague, which came from Asia, ravaged all the 
countries of Europe in turn from 1348 to 1850, and carried 

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off two-thirds of the population of Central Italy; a third, a 
half, and sometimes two-thirds of the inhabitants of 
Lombardy, Northern Spain, France, England, the Low 
Countries, and Germany; a half or two-thirds in the 
Scandinavian and East European countries. The towns 
were attacked with special severity. Venice lost two-thirds 
of its population; Bologna, four-fifths; Florence, 80,000 to 
100,000 souls; Majorca, 30,000; Narbonne, 30,000; Paris 
over 50,000; Strassburg and Bale, 14,000 each; Vienna, 
40,000. There were 300 deaths a day at Saragossa; at 
Avignon, 400; at Paris, 800; at London, 200. The scourge 
made new attacks from time to time in different places; 
it reappeared nine times in Italy, where it carried off 4,000 
peasants in 1899, four times in Spain between 1381 and 
1444, six times in France between 1861 and 1486, on which 
last occasion it cost 5,000 Parisians their lives. It paid five 
visits to England between 1361 and 1391, and in 1882 it is 
said to have destroyed a fifth of the population and caused 
a loss of life of 11,000 in York. From 13868 to 1891 it again 
ran through Germany and Poland, and 30,000 people died 
of it in one year in Breslau, 20,000 in Cracow, and from a 
half to two-thirds of the inhabitants of Silesia. It was a 
disaster for Europe comparable with, and perhaps greater 
than, that of the late world war. As far as can be calculated 
it cost from twenty-four to twenty-five million human 
lives. It brought about an unexampled scarcity of labour, 
which resulted in a series of economic and social crises of 
extreme gravity, lasting for half a century. Work was 
disorganized, and to the confusion engendered by the great 
changes which had taken place in the states and in society, 
there was added the confusion resulting from a diminution 
of human capital and of the productive power of the 
European peoples. 


285 


CHAPTER II 


TRANSFORMATION AND PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY IN EUROPE 
AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 


In spite of these crises and ‘‘ growing-pains,’’ European 
commerce developed in the course of the last century of the 
Middle Ages, chiefly to the benefit of those states which were 
most free from attack, or which were the soonest to repair 
the ruin which had been spread by the scourges of war and 
of epidemics. It was then that the future commercial 
organization of modern times took shape. In spite of the 
deep-rooted prejudices which prevailed on the subject of busi- 
ness enterprise, the needs of consumption and of luxury, as 
well as the growing profits to be drawn from commercial 
operations, gave a vigorous impetus to the trading powers— 
Italy, the South of France, Eastern Spam and Portugal, the 
Low Countries, and Germany. 

Large-scale international commerce grew in vitality and 
initiative, its organization became more complicated, and it 
withdrew more and more from the bonds of urban economy 
and engaged by preference in wholesale and commission 
trade. New and more or less extensive associations were 
formed, often on the joint share principle, sometimes carry- 
ing on only a limited commerce, sometimes engaging in 
numerous varieties of traffic, sometimes even in banking and 
exchange, and supplanting the old gilds, which were too set 
in their limited circle of local or regional transactions. Such 
were the English neces companies, the six merchant corpora- 
tions of Paris, the ‘‘ arti maggion ’”’ of Florence, and, above 
all, the Florentine arte of the Calimala, the French federation 
of mercers, the British companies of the Staple and Merchant 
Adventurers, the Hanses of the carrying or export traders 
of France, Germany, and Prussia. The most famous, the 
German Hanseatic League, included fifty-two towns in 1360, 
and eighty to ninety between 1450 and 1500. 

It was under the influence of the great merchants who 
carried on the export or carrying trade that the mechanism of 
commercial operations was perfected. Means of information 

286 


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‘ be an eS eee a 2. 5 tO ns 
a ee ee eee ee ye ey, eee 


* 
4 
Can 
i 


PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 


multiplied, in the shape of manuals and treatises on business, 
exchange, and jurisprudence, as well as accounts of journeys. 
The systems of account by double entry and of trade-marks 
which could be granted and transmitted made their appear- 
ance. The great commerce collected a whole army of clerks, 
porters, couriers, commissioners, interpreters, and messengers 
for its service. It organized meeting-places—bourses or -ex- 
changes—splendid buildings such as those of Genoa, Venice, 
Palma, Valencia, and Bruges. It had its representatives at 
the courts of princes, and its special justice, which was swifter 
than that of the ordinary tribunals; it elaborated a special 
merchant law, which took the place of canon law and 
approached more nearly to the civil law. 

It laboured to improve means of communication. Under 
its care old roads were repaired; in the fifteenth century 
there were 25,000 kilometres of them in France alone. The 
West was henceforth well provided with roads, and communi- 
cation with the Mediterranean over the Alpine passes was 
easy. In the fourteenth century the convoys of merchandise 
allowed no more than thirty-five days for the journey from 
Paris to Naples via the Mount Cenis pass. Services of carriers 
and posts were established in Italy, the Low Countries, 
France, and Southern Germany. River navigation was 
managed by great transport companies, which dug out and 
buoyed river beds and established river ports. The first 
sluice locks were invented in Lombardy, and the first navig- 
able canal was opened between the Baltic and the Elbe. On 
the Loire alone merchandise worth nine million francs was 
carried annually. 

War had, indeed, destroyed the vitality of the French 
fairs, notably those of Champagne; but others prospered in 
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain, and in particular 
at Florence, where business to the amount of fifteen’ or 
sixteen million francs was transacted every year, and at 
Geneva, Cologne, Frankfort, and Bruges. In spite of a 
chaotic Customs system and a régime which was often 
marked by all the old exclusiveness, colonies of merchant 
strangers were the recipients of consideration and favour. 
States were united by treaties of commerce. A money 
economy spread throughout all civilized countries, and it has 
been calculated that at this period 15 to 40 per cent. of all 

287 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


business was done in coin, and that the stock of circulating 
money in the West reached in the fifteenth century the value 
of a milliard of francs. The anarchy of the monetary system 
decreased with the increasing employment of the great 
metallic species and with the diffusion of international coins, 
florins, and Italian ducats, the standard of which was fixed 
and invariable. 

Loans on pledges, or for short periods at very high 
rates, were no longer used by any but individual debtors ; 
the rule of Jew and Lombard declined, as a breach was 
made in their monopoly by the monts de piété and 
the popular banks which were set up in Italy and 
Germany. Less burdensome forms of credit became 
general, such as loans on a limited partnership basis or 
on joint account, and advances on merchandise and on 
negotiable securities. Bills of exchange became supple 
instruments of commercial circulation, permitting the opera- 
tions of merchants and bankers to be carried on without the 
transfer of bullion, and the value of goods exchanged to be 
mobilized. In Italy and Germany commerce obtained credit 
at the rate of 4 per cent. to 10 per cent., instead of the 
20 per cent. to 86 per cent. demanded by the Jews and 
Lombards. Powerful Italian banking companies—Floren- 
tine, Sienese, Luchhese, Venetian, Lombard, Piedmontese, 
and Genoese—covered Europe with a network of counting- 
houses and spread far and wide an already advanced 
banking system, by no means limited to exchange opera- 
tions, but extending increasingly to the recovery of taxes, 
the negotiation of loans to collective or individual borrowers, 
the deposit of money, current accounts, clearance, and the 
discounting of bills. Associations of Spanish, German, French, 
and Flemish bankers were organized in imitation of these 
Italians. The first state banks even made their appearance 
in Venice, Genoa, Barcelona, Strasburg, Nuremburg, Frank- 
fort, Hamburg, and Augsburg. The trade in money became 
definitely one of the vital branches of European economic 
organization. 

Maritime commerce extended in scope in spite of the 
obstacles which it met with in customs systems, and in 
survivals of the old feudal economy. The right of reprisal 
was regulated ; maritime courts or courts of Admiralty were 

288 


PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 


set up; letters of marque were limited; an attempt was made 
to eradicate the endemic evil of piracy; armed escorts were 
organized to convoy the merchant fleets. In imitation of 
the Italian cities, such as Venice, which then possessed 3,300 
ships manned by 386,000 sailors, the Western powers equipped 
navies. Barcelona and the Balearic Isles owned 660 vessels 
and 30,000 mariners, and France had at one time 200 great 
warships with 20,000 sailors on the sea. 

Western commerce now set out to discover the world; 
nautical science was perfected, the compass came into 
general use, marine cartography advanced owing to the 
work of the Venetians, Genoese, and Catalans. The re- 
sources of Muscovy and of Central and Eastern Asia began 
to be known. The Italians sent their commercial agents as 
far as the Soudan. The Spaniards and Normans explored 
the coasts of Africa and discovered the Canaries in the four: 
teenth century, the Portuguese discovered Senegal, the 
Azores, Cape Verde, the Congo, and the Guinea Coast in the 
fifteenth century, the sailors of Dieppe reached the Ivory 
Coast, and the Bretons Terra Nuova. Already the world 
saw the beginning of that great movement which was 
later to reveal to it the marvels of the Indies and the New 
World. 

The Mediterranean remained the chief centre of world 
commerce, and Italy kept the chief place in it. Venice had 
replaced Byzantium and had become the greatest entrepdét 
for merchandise in the world, and the Venetians passed for 
*‘lords of the gold of all Christendom.’’ They imported 
annually from the East at the beginning of the fifteenth 
century ten million ducats worth of goods, more than a third 
of which came from India, and they bought in Egypt alone 
goods to the value of a million pounds. After them other 
Italian powers—Genoa and Florence—shared in the trade 
of the Black Sea and the Archipelago, Western Asia and 
Northern Africa, which was a source of immense profit. To 
this they added trade with the West, where in the fourteenth 
and fifteenth centuries they established a crowd of counting- 
houses at Lyons, Paris, Rouen, London, Bruges, Antwerp, 
and many other places; and they traded also with the 
distant lands of Central and Eastern Europe. Side by side 
with them the Spaniards and Portuguese prepared them- 

289 U 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


selves for the great part which they were to play in the age 
of discoveries. Barcelona, Parma, and Valencia disputed 
the empire of the Mediterranean and the African trade. 
Catalans, Castilians, Basques, and Portuguese set up “‘ fac- 
tories ’’ on all the coasts of the Atlantic, from La Rochelle 
to Bruges and London, and also in the interior of the 
Continent. 

France, whose commerce was ruined by the Hundred 
Years’ War, recovered her marvellous vitality from the time 
of Charles VIII, renewed her commercial relations with all 
Europe, and, thanks to Jacques Coeur, once more took up 
her trade with the Levant. England herself, awaking at last 
to a presentiment of her commercial vocation, persevered 
until she had built up a mercantile marine, equipped her 
ports—London, Bristol, Hull, and Newcastle—and developed 
her trade with her Continental possessions and with the 
Low Countries, Germany, and the Northern States. 

The Low Countries and Germany disputed with Italy the 
hegemony of the commercial world. The former, profiting 
by their privileged position at the juncture of the great 
international trade routes, almost monopolized the carrying 
trade between the north and south and the east and centre 
of Europe. Bruges was the hub, and rivalled Venice in its 
thronging trade as well as in its beautiful buildings; in 
1435, 100 ships sailed into its port daily, and its wealth and 
splendour dazzled the world. Antwerp, thanks to its 
franchises and to the widening of the Scheldt, began its 
career of prosperity, drawing to itself all the trade of 
Brabant, and from 1442 began to threaten the supremacy 
of Bruges, while in the north the Netherlands ports of 
Middleburg, Flushing, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam sup- 
planted the old ‘staples’? of Hardwyck and Dordrecht, 
thus preparing the way for the future ‘carriers of the 
sea.”’ 

Germany, which had developed a commercial life rather 
late, had with her native tenacity succeeded in winning her- 
self an eminent place among the commercial powers. She 
had attracted a good proportion of the trade of Europe to 
her land routes and her great rivers. On the Rhine a league 
of 60 river cities created a fleet of 600 ships; the Rhenish 
merchants, like the Flemings, grew rich on the carrying 

290 


PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 


trade in the ‘‘ golden city ’’ of Strasburg, in Frankfort- 
on-Main, and, above all, in Cologne. The Danube towns 
reached an unprecedented degree of prosperity through their 
relations with the East, Italy, and the Levant; Ulm drew a 
revenue of half a million florins annually from this trade, 
and Augsburg and Nuremburg, more active still, ‘* held 
the world in their hand,’’ as the emphatic German 
proverb ran. 

In the north, east, and west the Teutonic Hanse made a 
veritable empire for itself and turned Germany towards sea 
trade. Formed in 1241 by the free association of a small 
nhumber of trading cities of Low Germany, chief among 
which was Liibeck, the League a century and a half later 
included over a hundred, spread over four districts or 
** quarters,’’ from the Sudetes to the Baltic, and from the 
Scheldt to the great lakes of Russia. This powerful federa- 
tion, which had four capitals—Cologne, Brunswick, 
Liibeck, and Dantzig—and which contained all the chief 
trading cities of the Low Countries, Germany, and Eastern 
Europe, notably Amsterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, Magdeburg, 
Stettin, Breslau, K6nigsburg, and Riga, was a real mercan- 
tile state. It had its diets and general assemblies which 
promulgated regulations and decrees (recessen), its taxes, its 
treasury, its tribunals, and even its armorial bearings. It 
carried on an active and sometimes arrogant diplomacy, 
concluded commercial treaties, and made its flag known and 
respected everywhere. It set up its factories in Russia, 
Scandinavia, Poland, and Flanders—veritable fortresses with 
garrisons as well as warehouses, inhabited by the members 
or by clerks (there were two or three thousand of them, for 
example, at Bergen), who were submitted to an iron disci- 
pline and animated by an intransigent sort of mercantile 
patriotism. Its merchant fleet, with admirably trained 
crews, was protected by a navy of warships, which secured 
the safety of the convoys and waged a merciless struggle 
against piracy. 

The Hanse was the rough school in which Germany 
formed her sailors and her explorers. It pacified the northern 
seas, founded the first great ports there, and brought about 
the prevalence of a uniform commercial legislation. It tried 
to unify measures and to regulate the exchanges. But its 

291 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ideal was a sort of economic imperialism, selfish, brutal, and 
coarse, which trampled underfoot the interests and lawful 
rights of the weaker nations and exercised a kind of tyranny 
over them, at Bergen, Novgorod, and London, seeking to 
monopolize all trade and to destroy the national commerce 
of Scandinavia, Russia, and England, and thus rousing an 
inexpiable hatred against itself. 

Thus Western Europe, continuing its former work, had 
developed trade everywhere, on sea and on land, had added 
to. Mediterranean commerce that of the Atlantic and the 
northern seas, and had foreshadowed the new orientation of 
the great trade routes, which was to appear so clearly in the 
modern period. 

Towards the close of the Middle Ages there also began a 
new industrial revolution, brought about by the progress of 
credit, trade, and consumption. Everywhere, side by side 
with the small industry carried on at home or on the great 
domains, which maintained its widespread activity, particu- 
larly in districts where a natural economy still predominated, 
the small urban industry spread, with its workshops, its free 
crafts, and its sworn corporations. It maintained an un- 
deniable superiority all over Europe, especially in the 
West. 

But already the great industry, which had begun its 
conquests during the preceding period, was continuing them 
with yet more success in the new age. Better adapted to 
the exigences of national and international economy, more 
easily able to furnish wide markets, more remunerative for 
capitalists in search of profits, it extended step by step, first 
to the manufacture of cloth, then to mines, then to metal- 
lurgical enterprises, glassworks, potteries, printing-presses. 
Sometimes it made use of pre-existing organizations, and 
enrolled in its service isolated workmen, or artisans grouped 
into crafts and corporations, to whom it distributed orders 
and whose work it regulated. Sometimes it organized verit- 
able factories containing 120 weavers, as at Amiens in 1871, or 
120 printers, as at Nuremberg after 1450. Under its influence 
the new rural industry was organized, out of reach of the 
rules and hindrances of the urban government and the gild 
system. The big entrepreneurs favoured it, because they 
could more easily impose their conditions, increase or reduce 

292 


PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 


production at their will, and diminish their expenses, profit- 
ing by the smaller demands of peasant labour, while the 
peasants, on their side, found in the exercise of a craft, even 
though intermittent, an occupation for the dead season 
and an appreciable supplement to their means of existence. 
Rural industry soon prospered in most European countries, 
more especially in the Low Countries, France, Germany, 
England, and the Lowlands of Scotland, and even in Poland 
and Bohemia, under the direction of great merchants and 
entrepreneurs. It shared with the towns, and even some- 
times lured away from them, the woollen and lace manu- 
factures, many metallurgical trades, glass and paper-works, 
mines and ironworks, leaving to the urban centres more 
especially the principal food, clothing, and building trades 
and the luxury industries. 

Industrial technique made considerable advances in 
specialization and perfection. In a fair number of industries, 
notably in the textile and cloth-dressing trades, great pro- 
gress was made in specialization. The field of invention 
widened, and the employment of mechanical methods in- 
creased the productivity of human handiwork. Water- 
power, which had already transformed certain industries, 
such as the crushing of grain or of oleaginous matters, was 
used more and more for the fulling of cloth and the prepara- 
tion of tan and woodwork, as well as for the manufacture of 
paper. It was the power used to pump water out of saltpits 
and mines, to bring coal and minerals up to the surface, by 
means of special machinery, to cleanse them in buddles, to 
sort them on sliding tables, and to crush or break them up in 
crushing-mills. It was used to move the hammers which 
moulded metals and the grindstones which made them into 
tools. At the same time men learned how to regulate the use 
of wind in bellows, so as to obtain in their high and low 
blast furnaces a higher and more regular temperature and 
produce a larger quantity of metal. They learned how to 
employ the power furnished by vegetable and mineral fuel to 
better purpose in forges, glassworks, and potteries, and in 
Styria and in Germany were constructed the first blast 
furnaces, which were much more powerful than the old 
Catalan or Swedish hearths. Graduation houses and distilla- 
tion works were set up in the salt industry. This growing use 

293 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


of machinery and technical innovations gave an already 
marked superiority to the industry of the last century of the 
Middle Ages. 

The West continued to strengthen its hegemony over the 
East in the industrial sphere, and this despite the temporary 
eclipse of French industry. Italy, Germany, the Low 
Countries, Spain, and even new districts, rivalled each 
other in activity. The impetus was most marked in the 
mining, metallurgical, and textile industries. Men were no 
longer content to exploit the gold-strewn sands of the rivers. 
They now attacked the seams of yellow metal contained in 
the rocks of the Bohemian Mountains, the Carpathians, and 
the mountains of Carinthia and Transylvania. From the 
first of these gold to the value of 20,000,000 francs was 
extracted in 100 years, and the last brought the King of 
Hungary in 100,000 florins a year. Above all, silver-mines 
and argentiferous lead-mines were everywhere opened—in 
Italy, France, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, and especially in 
Alsace, the Harz Mountains, Saxony, Bohemia, and the 
Tyrol. 

Before the discovery of Peru and Mexico, the Saxon, 
Czech, and Tyrolese mines furnished Europe with silver, 
which was more and more sought after. The Schwartz mines 
produced metal to the value of 40,000,000 francs in 200 years, 
those of Freiburg and Annaburg produced 1,300 to 20,000 
kilogrammes a year, and those of Kutnahora, the Potosi of 
Bohemia, as much as 2,000,000 kilogrammes in three cen- 
turies. Everywhere, in the most favoured districts of Italy, 
France, and the Low Countries, flourished quarries of marble 
and of calcareous stone for building. 

In Italy, Spain, Portugal, and, above all, France, sea salt 
was actively exploited, and the lagunes of Comacchio fur- 
nished 40,000 loads a year for export. The marshes of 
Saintonge, Bas-Poitou, and Brittany provided a great part 
of the West with salt. From the rock salt-mines of Transyl- 


vania the kings of Bohemia drew a revenue of 100,000 florins 


a year, and from those of Poland and Galicia the Jagellons 
derived over 100,000 thalers. | | 
Men sought out and utilized more actively the iron-mines 
of Italy, Biscay, France, and Germany, the lead-mines of 
Brittany, the Harz Mountains, Devonshire, and Cornwall, 
294 


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Pa. ee ad 


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. ” “ Oat * 
ie Te cn i 
ee oe a ee ee ee ae ee eT) ee a 


PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 


the copper-mines of England and Germany, where the work- 
ings at Mannsfeld produced 8,000 to 30,000 hundredweights 
a year. In Sweden from 1847 the exploitation of the Koppar- 
berg began, and in Hungary copper and sulphates were 
mined. From Cornwall and Devonshire a growing quantity of 
tin was obtained and exported, especially to Antwerp, where 
the trade reached a value of two million francs. The stan- 
naries of Altenberg in Saxony and Ober Graupen in Bohemia 
quadrupled their output, which finally reached 1,000,000 tons 
a year and rivalled that of England. Poland exploited 
calamine and saltpetre, Spain mercury, Tuscany and the 
state of Rome alum. Coal began to be better appreciated, 
and the workings round Newcastle, Liége, Aix-la-Chapelle, 
and Dortmund became active. Pains were taken to develop 
the Italian, French, German, and Czech mineral and thermal 
springs. 

The progress in metal working and in the military arts 
stimulated the metallurgical industries. For the first time 
it was possible by means of the blast furnace to increase the 
production of cast-iron, to keep the apparatus working from 
eight to twenty-five weeks in the year, and to produce 
directly ordinary raw iron. Germany, mistress of the art of 
mining, took the first place in the great metallurgical indus- 
tries, and the French metallurgical enterprises, once so 
flourishing, now declined. A large number of forges were 
set up in Italy and Northern Spain, Hainault, the Namur 
district, the principality of Liége, and the German and 
Scandinavian countries. The use of the rolling-mill and the 
hydraulic hammer transformed the operations of rolling and 
hammering, and facilitated metal working. Bell foundries 
and gun foundries multiplied in Germany and the East of 
France. The Italian and German founders carried artistic 
cast-iron and bronze-work to a high degree of perfection. 
The fabrication of arms and of materials of war prospered in 
Italian, Spanish, French, and German workshops and in 
those of Liége. Nuremburg excelled in locksmith’s work, 
ironmongery, hardware, and clock-making, surpassing the 
French manufactures. If the French invented brass wire, it 
was the Germans who resuscitated the making of edged tools, 
of nails, and of iron wire, leaving to Italy a quasi-monopoly 
of the medallist’s and moneyer’s art, and to the workshops of 

295 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


the Low Countries, at Dinant, Malines, and Douai, that 
of copper and pewter-work. 

The textile industries enriched Italy above all. In that 
country Naples, Pisa, Siena, and, chief of all, Florence, 
Milan, and Venice worked at the fabrication of fine or dyed 
cloths for export. Florence at the beginning of the fifteenth 
century had 800 manufactories and 80,000 workmen, wove 
100,000 pieces a year, and sold 16,000 of them in the Levant, 
while a single one of her merchant companies—the Calimala _ 
—made 800,000 golden florins a year on its sales. In the 
Milan district the cloth manufacture occupied 60,000 workers, 
and the export of fabrics brought in 300,000 ducats. Venice 
employed 16,000 workers to produce the most beautiful fine 
cloths of the peninsula. The workshops of Catalonia, the 
Balearic Isles, and Flanders rivalled those of Italy, and the 
Majorcans exported 16,000 florins’ worth of cloth annually. 
While war meant death to the majority of the French work- 
shops (which preserved a little vitality only in Languedoc, 
Berry, Brittany, and Picardy), the prosperity of the manu- 
factures of fine cloth in Flanders and Brabant reached its 
height in the fourteenth century. When it was threatened 
in the fifteenth century by the rise of prices and the shortage 
of English wool, it was replaced by another industry—that 
of drapery made of combed wool, plain or mixed, and known 
as *‘bayes and sayes”’ (bourgetterie and sayetterie), which 
took the place of the old and moribund manufacture, and 
developed with an astonishing rapidity from Picardy to the 
Netherlands, saving the towns and country districts of 
Flanders and Brabant from ruin. On its side, Germany made 
use of its indigenous coarse wools in the fabrication of 
hundreds of thousands of pieces of coarse cloth, from Silesia 
and Westphalia to the Rhineland. Finally, England built up 
round Norwich her first great industry, that of fine cloths, 
friezes, kerseys, and worsteds, the export of which rose from 
5,000 to over 80,000 pieces in less than a century. 

The growth of luxury was favourable to the success of the 
art of silk weaving in Italy, which inherited the supremacy 
of Byzantium. From the workshops of Sicily and Calabria, 
and, above all, of Lucca, Siena, Florence, Genoa, and 
Venice, the last of which numbered 8,000 workers, there came 
forth the silken thread and the cloth of gold and silver, 

296 | 


PROGRESS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY 


the brocades, the damasks, the satins, and the velvets, in 
which the wealthy classes loved to flaunt themselves. Cata- 
lonia and Valencia manufactured light silks. In spite of 
attempts to rival them made at Paris, Ziirich, and Basle, 
Eastern Spain and Italy preserved something like a monopoly 
of this lucrative silk industry. 

The manufacture of fine linens was another Italian 
speciality, practised in particular at Milan and Venice. That 
of semi-fine linen and table linen was kept up in Catalonia, 
Champagne, Languedoc, and Normandy; that of sail-cloth 
in Brittany and Galicia. In Northern France and the Low 
Countries were manufactured those famous fabrics in linen 
thread which have made the names of Cambrai, Malines, 
Brussels, and Holland illustrious. In the country districts 
of Germany the manufacture of coarse linen and hempen 
goods was carried on; Ulm produced 20,000 to 60,000 pieces 
each year. A new variety of stuff called fustian was made with 
cotton imported from the Levant, and had an enormous 
vogue; the chief centres of its manufacture were Milan and 
Venice (where 16,000 weavers were occupied with it), Cata- 
lonia, and, in Germany, Augsburg and Ulm, where 6,000 
Weavers were employed and produced 350,000 pieces. 

Arras in Artois, Oudenarde and Tournai in Flanders, 
Brussels and Enghien in Brabant, won universal renown in 
the art of tapestry weaving, which spread to Paris, Venice, 
and Ferrara; they excelled also in lace-making. 

Venice made over 100,000 ducats annually from the 
export of her gilded leathers. Paris rivalled her in furrieries. 
Manufactures of chemical and pharmaceutical products, and 
of confectioneries and syrups, were set up in Italy in imitation 
of those of the East. The French, Flemish, and German 
cabinet-makers, the Italian, Catalan, and Valencian potters, 
the Italian inlayers, the Venetian and Czech glass-makers, 
rivalled each other in skill. The arts of building, painting, 
sculpture, and goldsmith’s work produced new wonders in 
the West in an early Renaissance, the forerunner of that of 
the sixteenth century. Paper-mills began to pour out the 
new material upon which, at the beginning of the fifteenth 
century, map-makers exercised their talent and copiers of 
manuscripts their activity, up to the time when the process 
of xylographic printing with movable wooden characters first 

297 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE :. 


appeared at Limoges (1881) and Antwerp (1417), followed by — 
the invention of typography, based on the use of metal 
characters, by Gutenberg (1486-50). ; : 

In this medieval society, now drawing to its close, 
industry was manifesting a feverish activity in all directions, — 
multiplying the sources of wealth, and strengthening the — 
power of the labouring classes. 4 


298 


CHAPTER III 


CHANGES IN THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL 
CLASSES.—URBAN REVOLUTIONS AND PROGRESS OF THE TOWNS AT 
THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 


WHILE commerce and industry were thus taking a new 
course, the primitive unity of the commercial and industrial 
classes, already severely shaken during the preceding period, 
was finally broken up. At the top appeared a growing 
minority of bourgeois capitalists; in the middle developed 
the small or medium bourgeoisie of masters, who formed the 
free crafts and corporations, below were the workmen, who 
were slowly becoming separated from the class of small 
masters ; and at the bottom of all came the hired wage-earners 
of the great industry, reinforced by casual elements, who 
formed a new urban proletariat. 

Henceforth the capitalist bourgeoisie, few in numbers 
and all powerful in wealth, was organized and grew. At 
Basle out of 30,000 inhabitants these capitalists formed only 
4 per cent. of the population, and at Venice, the richest city 
of the West, they were a mere 2,000 patricians, each of 
whom owned an income ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 
francs. But they held in their hands the greater part of the 
wealth of their towns; at Freiburg, for instance, thirty-seven 
burgesses had possessed themselves of 50 per cent. of the 
movable and immovable capital of the city, so that over a 
third of the inhabitants were without possessions. The 
bourgeois capitalists were able to equal and, indeed, to 
surpass the magnates of the landed aristocracy. A Floren- 
tine merchant banker, Cosimo de Medici, left a fortune of 
225,000 golden florins in 1440, greater than that of the 
appanaged princes of France. Dino Rapondi, the banker of 
Lucca, once advanced two million frances to the Duke 
of Burgundy, and the famous mercer Jacques Cceur, 
treasurer of Charles VII, amassed a capital of twenty-seven 
million frances, which was, indeed, less than that of the 
surintendant Pierre Rémy, who, in the time of Philip VI, 
was supposed to possess a fortune of fifty-seven millions. 
In the second half of the fifteenth century the merchant 

299 


1 Sa 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE — 


capitalists of Nuremburg and Augsburg were worth from ~ 
three and a half to five million francs, which had been © 
amassed in part during the first half of the century, when 
some of them possessed incomes of 10,000 to 15,000 florins 
apiece; it was then that the ascendancy of the bourgeois 


dynasties of the Fuggers, the Baumgartners, the Hoch- 3 


stetters, and the Hervaths began. 
They owed their success to their business capacity, their 


activity or their audacity, and to the spirit of enterprise 2 


which led them to spy out all possible sources of profit. 


They accumulated land rents; they got into their hands a 


the greater part of the urban house property, which, in 
Venice in 1420, represented a capital of nearly 100 million 
francs; they bought lordships and lands in the country. 
But it was, above all, banking, commercial, and industrial 
enterprises which enriched them. Through their associations 
they were the masters of credit and of money, and they even 
began to tap the savings of private individuals on the 
pretext of increasing them. They monopolized the great 
international commerce, the trade in foodstuffs and in 
luxuries, corn, fish, wine, cattle, and spices. They specu- 
lated in the raw materials necessary to industry and in 
manufactured goods, in lard, potash, tar, wood, hides, skins, 
furs, cotton, silk, wool, as well as in woollen and silken 
fabrics, fustians, coverlets, mercery, and soap. They under- 
took the exploitation of mines, set up metallurgical and 
textile manufactures, and everywhere the capital which they 
engaged bore fruit. | 

These great manipulators of money and men of affairs — 
were animated by a cosmopolitan spirit and detached from 
narrow urban interests. They were, on the contrary, glad 
to become the agents of kings and princes, and were the best 


auxiliaries of absolute monarchy, whose interests they served ye 
in serving their own. Often they adopted the magnificent 
and luxurious way of life of the high aristocracy. Men 
such as the patricians of Venice, Jacques Coeur, or the a 


Portinari at Bruges, dwelt in palaces or mansions worthy of 
princes. They took a pride in playing the part of Mecenas, 
and they were among the intelligent promoters of the 


Renaissance. But into medieval economic organization they _ 


brought unrest and pernicious ways: reckless speculation, 
300 


PLATE VI 


JACQUES ICOEUR'S SHIP 


(15th Century) 


[face p. 300 


} 
' 
| 
i 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


the practice of rings and monopolies, even of Cartels, 
the most complete absence of scruples and a contempt for 
every law of morality. They were reproached (as in one of 
the German diets) with ‘‘ destroying all chance of work for 
small. trade or trade on a moderate scale,’’ or, as a con- 
temporary wrote concerning Jacques Cceur, with ‘‘im- 
poverishing a thousand worthy merchants to enrich a single 
man.’*’ By their manceuvres and their failures, which 
harmed ‘* their opulence’? not at all, as a contemporary 
pamphlet complained, they overthrew all honest labour and 
trade. They upset the harmony of the old urban organiza- 
tion, shaking or annihilating it by making the protective 
regulations which it enforced illusory. They forced a large 
part of the industrial and commercial population to submit 
to their domination. They established a veritable dictator- 
ship over certain forms of work, and contributed to the 
creation and development of those redoubtable evils in- 
separable from hired labour and an urban proletariat, which 
they bequeathed to the modern world. 

If the struggle born of the formation of the capitalist 
bourgeoisie and its acquisitive spirit was then less serious 
than it became in the following centuries, the reason was 
that it was modified by the power which force of numbers and 
association gave to the small and middle class of bourgeois. 
This class, composed of small urban proprietors, of the mass 
of officials and, above all, of the traders and masters of the 
crafts, formed the great majority of the population in most 
towns; at Basle, for instance, they formed 95 per cent. 
They were content with modest fortunes ; in Germany, in the 
fifteenth century, the middle class of the bourgeoisie 
frequently owned from 2,000 to 10,000 florins. At Basle 
one-fifth of the bourgeois possessed on an average 200 to 
2,000 florins, and one-third, among whom were many 
artisans, from 380 to 200 florins. In France the bourgeois 
of this category usually gave their daughters dowries 
equivalent in value to 500 to 2,000 francs. This numerous 
class, not very adventurous, but often independent enough 
in character, was the object of the fostering care of the 
state, which often associated it in the work of government 
and abandoned to it a considerable part of urban administra- 
tion, in which it allowed popular elements to participate. 

801 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


It was, indeed, a precious element of vitality and stability 
in society. It never for an instant slackened its work, and 
at every moment new professions arose within the framework 
of the small commerce and the small industry. At Frank- 
fort-on-Main, in the fifteenth century, for instance, there 
were 191 organized crafts, 18 of them engaged in the iron 
industry alone; at Rostock there were 180; at Vienna and 
Basle, 100. Even in centres where the great industry seemed 
to exercise an undisputed sway, as at Ypres, its supremacy 
was challenged by the small industry, which occupied 48°4 
per cent. of the workers, as compared with 51°6 per cent. 
who were employed in the cloth. manufacture. In the 
immense majority of towns the greater part of the inhabi- 
tants were grouped in the crafts of the small industry; at 


Frankfort, which may serve as a type, they comprised 84 


per cent. of the working population, and the great industry 
only 14 per cent. ; 

The organization which had assured independence, 
dignity, and equitable conditions of labour to the working 
classes still prevailed with all its distinctive characteristics. 
The small crafts predominated, requiring neither great capital 
nor costly tools, giving the producer the possibility of enjoy- 
ing the full fruit of his labour and securing a certain equality 
in the way in which the produce of the collective activity 
was divided. The majority of the working population was 
grouped into free crafts, which exacted neither a chef 
d’ceuvre, nor a long term of apprenticeship, and which 
governed only by means of simple rules, which promoted 
rather than harmed the cheapness and good reputation of 
the manufactures. Up to the middle of the fifteenth century 
great towns like Bordeaux, Lyons, and Narbonne were living 
under this régime, and even in those in which sworn corpora- 
tions existed, the proportion of free crafts might be as high 
as a half (as at Poitiers) or two-thirds (as at Paris and 
Rennes) of the total number of occupations. 

Nevertheless, at this period sworn or privileged corpora- 
tions were increasing with extreme rapidity, whether in order 
to stimulate the languishing activity of labour, or to institute 
a satisfactory method of regulating industry and commerce, 
or to discipline the working classes, or to exploit their fiscal 
and military resources for the profit of the Government. 

302 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


Such corporations appeared at this time in France, at Tours, 
Besancon, Rennes, and many other towns, at Douai and 
Tournai and in the majority of towns in the Low Countries, 
England, Germany, Italy, and Spain, whence the movement 
spread to the rest of Europe. At Frankfort in a hundred 
years their number rose from 14 to 28, at Vienna from 50 
to 68, at London from 48 to 60, and at Venice from 59 to 
162. The corporations themselves subdivided and gave birth 
to new sworn crafts. The corporative régime was applied in 
some countries so widely as to include fiddlers, blind men, 
beggars, nay, even rogues and courtesans. Federations or 
unions of trades were organized, such as the safran at Basle, 
into which were grouped 100 crafts, or the brotherhood of 
tailors in the county of Hohenzollern, or the nations and 
liden of the towns of the Low Countries. Privileged 
corporations even arose in the little towns and townships. 
Without entirely submerging the free crafts, the sworn 
corporations enormously increased the extent of their own 
dominion. 

In some respects this régime continued to exercise the bene- 
ficial influence which it had exerted in the preceding period. 
It contributed towards maintaining the tradition of probity 
and technical capacity, of stability and social equilibrium in 
the world of labour. But the corporations were not slow to 
show themselves also possessed of that spirit of selfishness, 
exclusiveness, and even of dead routine, which in the end 
animates all privileged bodies. They carried monopoly and 
regulation to an extreme point, multiplied lawsuits between 
rival trades, pursued all independent labour with their 
hatred, exaggerated the minutie of their rules. They 
established an inquisitorial police, and became fortified 
Bastilles of privilege, in which a minority of employers 
ambushed themselves. The ill-advised policy of the 
municipal and central authorities allowed them to multiply 
enterprises, which were against the general interest, under 
all sorts of fallacious pretexts. 

Worse was yet to come, for division spread to the world 
of labour. In each centre rich or powerful corporations were 
striving to bring into dependence those which were less 
fortunate or weaker. In Florence the major arts trampled 
upon the middle arts, and yet more upon the minor arts. 

8038 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


In London the twelve great livery companies, which had the 
right to bear coats-of-arms, separated themselves from the 
fifty crafts which did not enjoy this right. In Paris the 
six merchant bodies, among which were the drapers and 
mercers, erected themselves into an aristocracy, and 
in Basle the corporations of ‘** gentlemen,” the herrenziinfte, 
did the same. In each sworn craft itself the old masters 
tried to monopolize the government at the expense of 
the young. In London, for instance, the 114 masters 
who were known as the Livery of the Brewers’ Company 
ruled the 115 others. 

This spirit, so hostile to liberty and so different from that 
of the preceding epoch, was particularly marked in the rela- 
tions between the masters and the workmen or journeymen. 
In a large number of crafts the workman was evicted from 
all dignities and responsibilities and reduced to playing a 
silent part in assemblies. Worse still, he was excluded from 
the mastership, which the masters made a property trans- 
missible from father to son, accessible to sons-in-law, open 
to rich journeymen, but closed to the poor. The proof of 
technical capacity, the masterpiece, became for this reason 
obligatory, and its conditions were purposely made more 
complicated. All these regulations, which were aggravated 
by high entry fees, or the obligation to give costly banquets, 
were intended to put the mastership out of reach of the 
great mass of the workers. A simple tinker in Brussels 
found himself asked to pay 300 florins for permission to 
set up shop. The stages through which the aspirant to 
mastership had to pass became more numerous and longer. 
Both the apprentice stage and the journeyman stage became 
obligatory, and sometimes lasted for as long a period as 
twelve years for all save the sons of masters, for whom it 
was reduced. Journeymen and apprentices were subjected 
to examinations, entry fees, and payments, which allowed 
the masters to exercise a despotic authority over them. 
Everything combined to keep the mass of the workmen in 
a situation from which there was no escape, for the advantage 
of a small number of privileged persons, for whom the rewards 
of labour were reserved. It was only in the free crafts and 
in a few corporations that communal life, a modest scale of 
business, and a small number of journeymen and apprentices 

8304 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


were still the rule and kept alive the old relations of cordiality 
and equity. 

But on all sides where the monopolistic policy of the 
masters triumphed, the journeymen entered into conflict 
with them, or else became consolidated into a class, whose 
interests were distinct from those of their employers. The 
gild regulations now only served to bow the worker beneath 
an intolerable yoke, preventing him from working for anyone 
but the master, who kept him in strict dependence, refused 
him any legitimate rise in wages (as happened after the Black 
Death), and allowed him only a humble place in the meetings 
of the craft and even in the fraternities. 

Wounded alike in his self-esteem and in his interests, the 
journeyman sought in rival corporative organizations the 
guarantees of liberty, equality and equity, and the means 
of protection which the privileged craft no longer gave to 
him. In the last century of the Middle Ages there began 
to appear a number of journeymen’s gilds, called associa- 
tions of compagnonnage in France and bruderschaften in 
Germany. These workmen’s unions were founded and often 
obtained recognition under cover of piety, charity, or 
technical instruction; they were sometimes set up with- 
out permission as secret societies practising mysterious rites. 
They broke from the rigid framework of the city, spread to 
whole regions and countries, formed (for example, in the 
Rhineland) regular federations, and concluded treaties of 
alliance and reciprocity among themselves. 

They made the acquisition of technical instruction easier 
for their members by organizing journeys from town to town 
and country to country, tours of France and tours of Germany, 
which in the latter country sometimes lasted for as long as 
five years. They had correspondents everywhere, and could 
secure lodgings and jobs on equitable terms for the workers. 
They were able, at need, to impose advantageous wages con- 
tracts upon masters, and sometimes they even admitted 
women to the benefits of their association. They had their 
officials, assemblies, subscriptions, treasuries, fétes and ban- 
quets, even their police and their secret meetings, such as 
those of the builders or ‘* freemasons,’’ with romantic rites of 
initiation, oaths, and means of correspondence. Moreover, 
they were intolerant and exclusive, and made war on the in- 

305 x 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


dependent workman (the ‘‘ fox ”’ or *‘ savage,’’ as the French 
were wont to call him) in order to force him to enter their 
association. They claimed the sole right of placing work- 
men and fixing conditions of work and wages. Thus they 
sketched, as it were, the first Workers’ International, which 
coexisted with innumerable other local groups, brotherhoods, 
confréries, the object of which was primarily religious, but 
which the journeymen could use to organize mutual under- 
standings and defence, in spite of the disapproval and 
prohibition of the Church and public authorities. 

Some of the workers in the small industry, in spite of the 
journeymen’s organizations, had to resign themselves to 
living in a perpetual state of subordination under the rule 
of the masters, and to accept the rates of wages which were 
often imposed upon them by the gild or municipal regula- 
tions. These men went to swell the ranks of the urban 
proletariat, the chief element in which was, however, formed 
by the hired wage-earners of the great industry. 

The latter, more numerous now than in the preceding 
era, were more than ever subject to the domination of great 
entrepreneurs, who distributed orders to them at will, 
bought the produce of their labour, paid them famine 
wages, obliged them to take part of their payment in truck 
at arbitrarily fixed prices, kept them in dependence by 
means of an ingenious system of advances, which lured them 
into debt, and exposed them to crises of over-production and 
unemployment. Hence these proletarians lived in a 
permanent state of discomfort and discontent, which found 
vent in strikes or unions, accompanied by boycotts, when it 
was found impossible to settle them by arbitration or to 
suppress them by force. Hence also attempts at risings and 
revolutions which more than once brought trouble and blood- 
shed into the towns. The proletariat usually gained only 
ephemeral successes, which they compromised by their 
violence, intolerance, and tyranny; the final victory re- 
mained with those powers which were the _ traditional 
defenders of order and of the privileges of the masters. 

Henceforth, too, began the development of those two 
endemic ills of the proletariat—tramping and begging. 
Numbers of workmen, discontented with their lot, wandered 
from country to country in search of work. Thus it was that 

306 


a ee 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


during the Hundred Years’ War 20,000 Norman workmen 
emigrated to Brittany, and others as far as Germany, while 
Flemish workmen crossed the Channel and the Rhine in 
large numbers, and German workmen spread over Italy, 
France, and England. At the same time the transformation 
of industry, the competition of rural and female labour, 
which the great entrepreneurs preferred to employ, and of 
foreign labour, which grew in spite of the gild regulations, 
brought with them prolonged crises of unemployment, and 
developed pauperism among the proletariat. Bands of un- 
employed workmen and other poor wretches crowded the 
poorer quarters and outskirts of the industrial towns to 
such an extent that at Florence there were 22,000 beggars, 
or else took to the roads, begging their way from town to 
town and from city to city. In France they were called 
quémans or quaimans. 

Capitalism above and pauperism below were the two 
disturbers of equilibrium which crept into the closing 
years of medieval life; but happily their range of action 
was still limited. The great mass of the industrial and 
commercial classes, outside the capitalist bourgeoisie, on 
the one hand, and the proletariat, on the other, enjoyed con- 
ditions of life which were nearer comfort than poverty, at 
least, in those countries which were not the prey of war or 
other crises. Small fortunes were widespread among the 
middle and smaller bourgeoisie. The organization of the 
small industry was always in favour of stability, and 
guaranteed a certain level of comfort to the majority of 
artisans and small masters. The workman himself continued 
to benefit under this régime by the rules which protected 
him against competition, secured him the right to work, and 
guarded him from overwork. 

Better still, he benefited by the general rise of wages 
which followed upon the scarcity of labour resulting from 
the great epidemics, which all the ordinances of the govern- 
ments were powerless to prevent. In Italy and Spain the 
rise varied from double to triple the previous rates. The 
average daily wage of the Italian workman rose from 0 fr. 41 
to 1 fr. 54. In France the ordinance of 1350 sought in vain 
to limit the rise to a third as much as the former wage, and 
to fix the daily wage of the builders at 16d. to 32d., accord- 

- 807 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ing to the winter or summer season. It was so unsuccessful 
that the carpenters who were earning two sous at Poitiers in 
1349 were making five in 1422 and six in 1462, while at Paris 
the builder was receiving in 1450 the equivalent of 4 fr. 60, 
as much as the wage-earner of the same union earned in the 
middle of the nineteenth century. In England the workers 
in this trade were earning 6d. instead of 3d. a day, and 
others were receiving 53d. instead of 84d. Thorold Rogers 
asserts that the real value of the English workman’s nominal 
wage was then twice what it was in the twelfth or in the 
seventeenth century. In Germany wages in certain classes 
of trades rose during the fifteenth century from 13d. to 25d., 
and the boatmen of the Rhine were making as much as a 
florin a day. In Westphalia and Alsace the nominal and 
real wage became equivalent; it exactly sufficed, that is 
to say, to meet the cost of living. 

For the masters and workers in ine small industry in 
most countries the conditions of material life remained, to 
say the least of it, advantageous. They were, indeed, 
exceptionally favourable in Italy, the Low Countries, and 
Germany, which rapidly recovered from the population 
crisis and enjoyed an economic prosperity superior to that 
of other regions. As in the preceding period, although the 
wage-earners in the great industry usually lived miserably 
in the hovels and outskirts of the towns, the masters and 
journeymen of the small trade and industry lived an easy 
enough life, in which the chief element—food—seems to have 
been plenteous, not to say abundant, notably in the Rhine- 
land, Flanders, and England. In Frankfort, in the fifteenth 
century, the consumption of meat was as high as 125 to 150 
kilogrammes per head; as much as it was at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century. A traveller of this period remarks 
that in the Low Countries and England ‘‘ more folk die of 
too much eating and drinking than of the pains of hunger.”’ 
In the towns there were never more fétes and taverns, more 
furious gaming, and more moral licence; Florence and Venice © 
each supported from 12,000 to 14,000 prostitutes. Never, also, 
was the urban population more mobile, more given to works 
of solidarity and charity, more inclined to welcome the 
new ideas which were working underground among the 
masses in the guise of religious reform. Never, finally, 

808 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


did it show a more vivid consciousness of its rights and 
a greater boldness of spirit and strength of character in 
taking action to vindicate them and bring about their 
triumph. 

The last century of the Middle Ages is, indeed, par 
excellence the century of great urban revolutions. Although 
the pressure of the working classes had, in general, modified 
urban organization in the West during the preceding period 
in the direction of democracy, the popular elements were 
_far from preponderating. Sometimes, as in Germany, the 
patriciate had been partly successful in maintaining itself in 
power; sometimes, as in Flanders, the working democracy 
had had to share the power with the bourgeoisie; some- 
times, as in France, the bourgeoisie of officials and 
merchants or of masters of the chief crafts formed the 
governing body of the town; sometimes, as in Bohemia, the 
municipal offices were seized by a middle class of alien 
origin; sometimes, as at Florence, the greater and lesser 
bourgeoisie united to drive the wage-earning proletariat 
from the urban government. 

The conquest of political power was thus the objective 
pursued by the lower classes, who desired to make use of 
the wide prerogatives of the urban authority, to alleviate 
the fiscal and military charges which the bourgeoisie 
preferred to heap upon their shoulders, and to prevent 
capitalists and bourgeois from regulating the conditions of 
labour at their own will. Indeed, these classes were some- 
times not content with claiming equality and justice in the 
communal administration, but more than once cherished a 
dream of syndicalist government, class domination, a 
dictatorship of the proletariat exercised in their favour and 
at the expense of other social grades. Hence the bitter, 
violent, tragic aspect of most of these urban revolutions, 
some of which were, indeed, no more than blind explosions 
of popular hatred or misery. 

From East to West, in the last half of the fourteenth 
century, the hurricane of revolution rose with violence on 
every side. At Salonica (1342-52) the sailors and artisans 
set on foot a sort of red terror, accomplished by massacre 
and ravage, under which the rich (archontes), landowners, 
captains of industry, and clergy bent for ten years. In Italy 

809 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


there was unchained a struggle between the fat and the thin, 
between the plebeians of the small crafts and the proletariat, 
on the one hand, and the great bourgeoisie of masters and 
capitalists, on the other. In the two Sicilies the Crown put 
a stop to it by closing access to the urban government to 
artisans; but while at Rome the visionary tribune Cola di 
Rienzi (1847) tried, with the support of the people, to break 
down the authority of the noble patriciate, at Bologna (1376), 
Genoa (1839), and Siena (1355-70), the masses sought to 
obtain the absolute mastery of municipal power. At 
Florence the wage-earners of the great industry, the piccolini 
or popolani, deprived of political rights, rallied, at first, 
round a dictator, the French adventurer Gauthier de 
Brienne, Duke of Athens (1342). Then, pushed to extremes 
by a law of 1871, which took from them all hope of paying 
off their debts to the entrepreneurs, they organized the 
celebrated revolt of the Ciompi. Under the direction of an 
intelligent and energetic wool-carder, Michel Lando, they 
forced the bourgeoisie to admit them to the ranks of the 
official corporations or arti, to give them a share in the 
government, to free them from the jurisdiction of the agents 
of the great industrialists, and to decree a twelve years’ 
moratorium for the debts of all wage-earners. But they 
were soon carried away by extremists, proclaimed an 
anarchical and bloody dictatorship for the profit of the 
proletariat alone, whom they dignified by the name of 
‘* God’s people,’? and thus provoked a reaction which swept 
away the proletarian revolution in a few weeks (July, 1378). 
The sole result of these disturbances was to throw the Italian 
bourgeoisie into the arms of an enlightened despotism, which, ~ 
under the name of principate, pacified the communes in the 
fifteenth century by dint of enslaving them. 

Nowhere did the revolutionary spirit display a more 
mystical ardour, a greater spirit of international propaganda, 
and a more violent pursuit of class demands and the dicta- 
torship of labour than in the Low Countries. There hundreds 
of thousands of men struggled with fierce energy and an 
extraordinary bravery (sullied by hideous excesses) against 
nobles, clergy, and, above all, bourgeoisie, for the triumph 
of their ideal. They cherished the dream of an equality of 
fortunes and the suppression of all hierarchy, all authority, 

3810 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


beyond that of the people who lived by manual labour. A 
first experiment had already been tried at Ypres and at 
Bruges (1323 and 1328) in the jacquerie of maritime Flanders, 
under the leadership of two workers, Guillaume de Decken 
and Jacques Peit, who proclaimed war on all rich men and 
priests, and maintained a reign of terror, until the bourgeoisie 
united with the nobles, and inflicted upon them the 
disastrous defeat of Cassel (1328). A second attempt, 
longer and still more serious, was made by a bold and 
eloquent tribune, himself a member of the great bourgeoisie, 
the draper James van Artevelde. By means of an alliance be- 
tween the working classes and a section of the bourgeoisie, 
he succeeded in realizing his plan of setting up a hegemony 
of Ghent in Flanders, with the support of the King of 
England (1888-45). But he was soon outrun by the 
democracy of weavers, impatient to establish the sole 
government of the working class. This last dictatorship, 
whieh began with the rising in which Artevelde perished, 
employed as its methods forced loans, massacres, confisca- 
tions, and pillage; it set workers against workers, and 
ranged the fullers (who were crushed on March 2nd, 1345) 
against the weavers. It ended in the fall of the latter 
(January 13th, 1349), against whom princes, nobles, clergy, 
peasants, bourgeois, and small artisans were all united. A 
number of the vanquished emigrated to England; the others 
prepared their revenge, and attempted it in 1359 and, above 
all, in 1878. 

This time the movement of the workers of Ghent only 
just missed having an immense repercussion in the West 
and unchaining an international revolution. The leaders 
of Ghent sought to set on foot a pure workers’ dictatorship 
to despoil and destroy the bourgeoisie, and to raise journey- 
men against masters, wage-earners against great entrepre- 
neurs, peasants against lords and clergy. It was said that 
they had contemplated the extermination of the whole 
bourgeois class, with the exception of children of six, and 
the same for the nobles. Masters of Flanders under their two 
leaders, Philip van Artevelde and the weaver Ackerman, 
the workers of Ghent for four years made established govern- 
ments tremble. The Battle of Roosebecque brought this 
nightmare to an end in November, 13882, and cost 26,000 

811 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


proletarians their lives. No other movement attained such 
proportions, but sporadic attempts at Liége in 1330 and 
1343, at Louvain in 1840, at Brussels in 1359, 1866, and 1368, 
and at Bruges in 1359, 1366, 1367, showed how tenaciously 
the working classes of the Low Countries clung to the hope 
of a renovation of society. Little by little, in the fifteenth 
century, the movement became confined to Bruges and, 
above all, to Ghent and Liége, where, as in Italy, it was 
destined to be stifled by the princely power. 

In the rest of Europe, particularly in the West, the work- 
ing classes indulged in less audacious visions. They were con- 
tent, with more or less success, to claim a share in municipal 
power or to try and reform the organization of urban govern- 
ment. Thus in Germany a series of risings at Cologne (1396), 
Strasburg (1346-80), Regensburg, Wurzburg, Bamberg, Aix- 
la-Chapelle, Halberstadt, Brunswick, Magdeburg, Liibeck, 
Rostock, and Stettin, forced the bourgeois patricians to yield 
up their monopoly and to hand civic offices over to the crafts. 
These displayed a certain sense of equity and balance, so that 
the German towns enjoyed a really liberal régime. In Spain, 
on the contrary, although the great bourgeois, the ‘* honour- 
able citizens’? of the Eastern towns, Palamos, Figueras, 
Barcelona, Valencia, and Palma, had to resign themselves 
(not without a stubborn resistance) to sharing their power 
with the artisans (menestrals), the latter failed to wrest the 
civic offices from the nobles and wealthy bourgeois in Castile. 
In Bohemia and Poland, France and England, the democratic 
urban governments in most cases declined, as happened at 
Paris, Rheims, Rouen, Verdun, Montpellier, and Nimes, or 
only with difficulty clung to a few of their conquests, as at 
Amiens and London. 3 

For the rest the commercial and industrial classes were 
not usually successful in endowing the towns with stable and 
equitable institutions. Working democracies or bourgeois 
aristocracies had in their hearts only one common senti- 
ment, municipal patriotism, which often inspired them 
with an admirable zeal to preserve the autonony, greatness, 
and glory of their cities. But, except in those centres in 
which mixed governments were established, urban adminis- 
trations were animated by a rigid caste selfishness, which 
was contrary to all spirit of justice and true equality. They 
sought to monopolize power and office, now on behalf of 

812 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


the bourgeoisie, now on behalf of the people. Their 
despotism was exercised here against the rich bourgeoisie, 
there to the detriment of artisans and wage-earners. The 
workers themselves, when they got the upper hand, were not 
content with oppressing the bourgeoisie, but tore each other 
to bits. Each class governed in its own exclusive interest, 
trying to direct labour and regulate the production and 
sometimes the distribution of wealth to its own advantage. 
The spirit of intrigue and the lust of power showed itself in 
bourgeois and proletarians alike. The former often gave 
more heed to wealth than to talent in the apportionment of 
municipal dignities; the latter showed a blind faith in the 
most unworthy adventurers and the lowest demagogues; at 
Paris they hailed a skinner as their leader, at Ghent a street- 
singer, and at Liége a pavior. Neither the one nor the other 
knew how to maintain good order and probity in their 
dealings. 

Nor did they think of breaking away from the narrow 
spirit of the old urban economy. They had but one ideal, 
. to preserve and increase the particular privileges of their city 
and of its constituent groups. Thus they were ready to de- 
fend their commercial and industrial monopolies even by force 
of arms. Bruges claimed to reserve for herself the import 
trade in wool and spices to the Low Countries; Ghent, that 
of corn; Malines, that of salt and fish. Economic rivalries 
set Venice and Genoa, Bruges and Sluys, Ghent and Bruges, 
Malines and Antwerp, Dordrecht and Amsterdam, Paris and 
Rouen, at grips with one another. Sometimes towns aspired 
to build up an exclusive colonial or commercial domain for 
themselves, like that of the Venetians, the Genoese, and the 
Hansards. Sometimes they extended their dominion over 
the small towns in their neighbourhood, as Ghent, Ypres, 
and Bruges did in Flanders, Genoa in Liguria, Florence in 
Tuscany, Venice in Lombardy, and Barcelona in Catalonia. 
Everywhere they subjected the neighbouring countryside 
and tried to make the peasants their docile purveyors, while 
at the same time forbidding them to exercise any industry 
in order that it might be reserved for the urban crafts. 

The towns thus opened the way for the encroachment of 
the princely power, which undertook the re-establishment 
of order and social equilibrium in the towns by submitting 
them to a more or less rigid control. This new power in its 

313 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


turn, however, provoked a fresh series of revolutionary move- 
ments, by reason of the partiality which it showed to the 
wealthy classes, the encroachments of its fiscal policy, and 
the arbitrary actions of its administrative agents. The 
most. famous of these risings were those which agitated 
the great urban centres of France and the Netherlands. At 
Paris, in 13856 and 1358, the revolution led by the rich 
draper Etienne Marcel had as its chief supporters the 
mercantile bourgeoisie and the gilds of artisans, who lent 
their aid on the famous day of February 22nd, 1358, and 
inspired certain articles in the great ordinance of reform, 
by which an attempt was made to repress the abuses of 
royal administration. 

Twenty-two years later, in 1379-82, from Languedoc to 
Picardy, from Montpellier, Carcassonne, and Béziers to 
Orleans, Sens, Chalons, Troyes, Compiégne, Soissons, Laon, 
Rouen, Amiens, Saint-Quentin, and Tournai, a whirlwind of 
revolution, with Paris as its centre, once more hurled the 
urban classes, weary of royal fiscal and administrative 
despotism, against the central power. The movement 
collapsed; the political privileges of the craft gilds were 
attacked, and in some places, as at Amiens, they were dis- 
missed from the chief municipal offices. At Béziers forty 
working weavers and cordwainers were hanged, and at Paris 
and Rouen the crafts were severely treated. A _ third 
attempt, the Parisian revolution of 1413, once more brought 
the working democracy into power, in brief alliance with 
the bourgeoisie, and gave rise to a fresh attempt at adminis- 
trative reform, the ‘‘ Ordonnance Cabochienne,’’ which was 
rendered fruitless by civil war and a terror, led by the 
skinner Caboche and the hangman Capeluche (1413-18). 
The central government finally prevailed, and henceforth, 
the communal bourgeoisie having grown wiser and the 
common folk of artisans somewhat calmer, the direction 
of urban policy was left in its hands. The same thing 
happened in the Low Countries, when the Dukes of Burgundy 
repressed the last particularist rebellions of Bruges (1436-38), 
Ghent (1481-86-48), Liége and Dinant (1408-66-68). For the 
Middle Ages were now drawing to a close, and, except in 
Germany, the urban economy was finally disappearing before 
the triumph of a national economy. 

814 


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HA ALW Id 


THE URBAN REVOLUTIONS 


Nevertheless, despite revolutions and internal conflicts, 
the movement of commercial and industrial expansion was so 
powerful that urban life, far from declining, took on a re- 
newed vigour. In the East, Byzantium, Salonica, and 
Athens threw out a last flicker of glory. France, though 
crippled by the English wars, still kept great and vital 
centres, such as Paris (with 800,000 inhabitants in the 
fifteenth century), Lyons, Bordeaux, Rheims, Rouen, and 
Amiens. In Central Europe, Prague numbered, perhaps, 
100,000 citizens; London reached a total of 35,000; and in 
Spain, where small towns abounded, Barcelona, the queen of 
Iberian cities, attained to 60,000 or 70,000 souls, followed 
closely by Valencia and Palma. 

But the chief centres of urban life were, on the one hand, 
and above all, Italy, where Venice had 190,000 inhabitants, 
and Florence 100,000, only just outstripping Milan and 
Genoa, and supreme among 120 other cities both large and 
small; and, on the other hand, the Netherlands, where 
beside Bruges, with its 100,000 inhabitants, Ghent seems to 
have had 80,000, and Ypres 40,000. Flanders had the aspect 
of **a continuous town,’’ so preponderant was the urban 
population; in Brabant it comprised no less than a 
quarter of the whole. This was likewise the golden 
age of the urban republics of Germany, those 96 free 
German towns, chief among which were Cologne, with its 
40,000 souls, and Basle, Strasburg, Augsburg, Nuremburg, 
Regensburg, Vienna, Constance, Speier, Treier, Frankfort, 
Mainz, Magdeburg, Erfurt, Liibeck, and Breslau, in which 
the population normally ranged between 5,000 and 20,000. 

The towns, above all those of the West, were filled with a 
generous spirit of emulation; they adorned themselves with 
magnificent monuments, dowered themselves with a host of 
charitable institutions, developed all the grades of education, 
and became more than ever before the homes of literary and 
scientific culture, playing an eminent part in the literary’and 
artistic renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 
Before going down beneath national economy and monarchical 
rule, urban civilization, thanks to the economic activity of 
the bourgeois and working classes, blazed out in a last 
magnificent brilliance, the forerunner of the splendour of 
modern civilization. 

3815 


CHAPTER IV 


VICISSITUDES OF COLONIZATION AND AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.— 
CHANGES IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF LANDED PROPERTY AND IN THE 
CONDITION OF THE RURAL CLASSES AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE 
AGES.—THE PEASANT REVOLTS. 


Tue end of the Middle Ages was a period of marked contrasts 
in the domain of agriculture. Certain regions, such as the 
old Eastern Empire, Bohemia, and Hungary, grew poorer and 
more depopulated, and others, such as Sweden, Ireland, and 
Scotland, were unable to emerge from their condition of 
poverty. France, the most prosperous country in the West, 
became, in Petrarch’s words (1360), ‘‘a heap of ruins’’; 
from Loire to Somme nothing was to be seen but “‘ un- 
cultivated fields, overgrown with brambles and bushes,”’ as 
Bishop Thomas Basin said in 1440, when a third of her terri- 
tory lay uncultivated. But other more favoured regions con- 
tinued to exploit their soil to its utmost value. In Italy 
the embankment of the Po was carried on from the place 
where it joined the Oglio; a number of marshes (polesine, 
corregie) were converted into cultivated ‘‘ polders”’ in 
Lombardy and Tuscany, irrigation canals or trenches fed 
from the Naviglio Grande and the Naviglio Interne, besides 
those of Martesana, Panarello, and Chiaro, fertilized the 
fields of Lombardy and Modena. A similar work was being 
carried out in Eastern Spain. 

In the Low Countries the work of defence against the sea, 
which, in 1877 and 1421, had swallowed up ninety townships 
and increased the area of the Zuider Zee, went on. The 
dykes were reinforced at the end of the fifteenth century, 
and 1,100 square kilometres of ‘‘ polders ’’ were conquered. 
From the Vistula to the Niemen, under the auspices of the 
Teutonic Order, the formation of ‘* werder ”’ was accelerated. 
In Hungary, under the Angevins, and in Poland, under the 
Jagellons, the clearing of the land made active progress, as 
also in those Baltic territories which were occupied by the 
Scandinavians. Finally, in the East, the merchants of 
Novgorod and the Great Russian monks and peasants of 

316 


a ay 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


Muscovy carried across marsh and forest that great work 
of colonizing Finnish and Tartar lands, which was to make 
Russia mistress of the immense stretch of territory which 
lies between the middle Volga, the Arctic Ocean, and the 
Obi (1863-1489). 

Popular activity tended to turn in the direction of the 
most advantageous forms of production, to follow variations 
in demand and in foreign markets, and to be governed by 
the natural aptitude of each region. The maritime popula- 
tions of the North-West and North of Europe—Norwegians, 
English, Scots, Hansards, Netherlanders—drew increasing 
revenues from their fisheries, especially from that of the 
herring, which was par ewcellence the food of the people. 
The Netherlands employed 40,000 boats in this work, and 
benefited by the discovery of a new method of preserving 
the favourite fish of the masses, by packing it in kegs or 
barrels, which facilitated export, and was due to the 
Zeelander, Gilles Beucholz. From the North Cape to Galicia, 
sailors pursued the whale, the seal, and, above all, the cod, 
which, swept on by the Gulf Stream, they sought even as far 
as the ‘* new-found land.”’ 

While deforestation was going on apace in England, the 
Low Countries, Italy, and Spain, the lands of the North, 
East, and Centre of Europe were turning their forest resources 
to more and more profitable account. Princes and lords in- 
creased the number of their studs in Italy and England. The 
raising of sumpter-horses, battle-horses, and race-horses 
prospered in regions rich in grasslands, as did that of horned 
cattle in the Alpine zone and in the Western countries, which 
furnished meat, bacon, and lard to the rest of Kurope. In 
the Low Countries the art of fattening cattle on 
turnips and leguminous plants was first invented. Else- 
where milch cows were the chief speciality. The scarcity of 
labour after the Black Death, combined with the fact that 
sheep required but little labour and expense, and with the 
growing demand for and high price of wool, led to an extra- 
ordinary development in one form of pasture-farming, that of 
sheep-rearing. In the majority of European countries this 
business became once more extremely popular, and pasture- 
farming even took the place of corn-growing in Central Italy, 
the Roman Campagna, the Castiles and Upper Aragon, and, 

317 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


finally, in England. In Spain, in the fifteenth century, the 
great association of sheep-farmers known as the Mesta 
grouped into a single organization 2,694,000 sheep, out of 
the 10,000,000 then kept in the peninsula. In England the 
great landowners, attracted by a system of rural economy 
which gave them ten or twelve times as high a return as 
corn-growing, kept flocks of 4,000 to 25,000 sheep. In 1400 
the English were exporting as many as 180,000 packs of fine 
wool, weighing 864 pounds apiece, and had ousted the 
Spaniards as masters of the market. 

On their side new countries began to turn their attention 
to corn-growing. Prussia, Poland, and Hungary henceforth 
took their place as the great producers of cereals, side by 
side with old centres of production, such as France. In the 
Low Countries and in England, where methods of intensive 
cultivation were used, farmers succeeded in getting returns 
of seven to one, instead of four to one. Horticulture, flori- 
culture, and arboriculture developed in the rich lands of the 
West, and it was now that the reputation of the Flemish 
florists and the nurserymen of Nuremburg and Augsburg 
was founded. The cultivation of the vine tended to become 
localized, and to increase in Italy, Spain, France, the Rhine- 
land, and Hungary. Italian and Spanish wines supplanted 
those of the East, and the wines of France kept their 
popularity. At the beginning of the fifteenth century 
Bordeaux was still exporting from 28,000 to 30,000 casks 
a year. The cultivation of textile and dye plants benefited 
by the progress of industry. 

The decline of production in one part of Europe was 
counterbalanced by its increase in another. The rise in the 
price of agricultural produce was in favour of the develop- 
ment of landed property in privileged regions. While in 
France, a prey to war, the value of land fell to a half between 
13825 and 1450, and in Normandy even reached as low a 
figure as from 325 to 28 francs the hectare, it rose in the 
inverse direction in the states of the Dukes of Burgundy, 
and in Italy, England, the Low Countries, Southern 
Germany, and Eastern Spain. 

The break-up of landed property continued along the lines 
laid down in the preceding period. Agrarian collectivism 
finally disappeared, even in the Germanic countries, and in 

318 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


general the only traces left of it were the commons, which were 
still numerous in the Scandinavian countries, Eastern and 
Central Europe, and the hilly districts of the West, such as 
Upper Italy, where they covered a sixth or a seventh of the 
soil, or even in the North of Spain. Everywhere communal 
property was enclosed and the major part of it appropriated. 
The large properties of the state, the greater aristocracy, and 
the Church continued to spread. Everywhere princes sought 
to build their domains up again. In Muscovy they claimed 
three-fifths of the land for themselves, and in Moldavia and 
Wallachia the whole. In France the Valois kings, despite 
their prodigality, drew a revenue of 4 million livres from 
the state lands, and the Dukes of Burgundy 160,000 écus 
d’or. In England the Yorkist kings, in 1460, laid hold of 
a fifth of the soil. But the sovereigns were unable to main- 
tain this property intact, and it was continually breaking up 
to the profit of the Church and the nobles. 

In spite of measures taken everywhere against the 
extension of mortmain, ecclesiastical property grew to a 
monstrous extent, which aroused the cupidity of lay lords 
and the desire for secularization. In the two Sicilies and 
Central and Northern Italy, the clergy, in the fifteenth 
century, held two-thirds and sometimes as much as four- 
fifths of the land; in the state of Venice their landed capital 
was worth 129 million écus. In the Castiles, where the 
-Church held from a third to a fifth of the land, it had a 
revenue of 10 million ducats. In France, ruined by the 
war, it was so successful in building up its landed wealth 
again in fifty years that it recovered from a quarter to a 
half of the land, and drew from it a revenue greater than 
that of the state—to wit, 5 million livres tournois (100 
million franes). The revenue of the English clergy was 
twelve times greater than that of the king, and they held 
about the same proportion of the land as in France. In 
Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and Eastern Europe 
that proportion was as high as a third or a half, and even — 
two-thirds. 

A minority of great lords, barons, landlords, magnates, 
sovereign lords (landesherren), sometimes owned immense 
domains which they called ‘states’? (estados, estates) in 
Spain and England, sometimes scattered, and sometimes 

819 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


concentrated. In Italy a Colonna, in the fifteenth century, 
owned 97 fiefs and had 150,000 vassals; a Villena at Castile 
had 80,000 censitaires and a revenue of 100,000 ducats; a 
Duke of Orleans had an income of 540,000 livres; a Duke of 
Anjou, 400,000; a la Trémoille, 336,000; a Rohan, 280,000. 
In England Lord Cromwell drew £66,000 sterling from his 
possessions, and the German princes each owned lands 
yielding on an average 240,000 marks, a tenth of the revenue 
which was later to be enjoyed by Charles V. But they 
formed only a very small minority. The mass of noblemen, 
save in a few countries, such as England, neglected the 
cultivation of their estates, and alienated them one by one 
to pay their debts or to meet their expenses. 

It was usually the rich bourgeoisie which stepped into their 
shoes and laboured to build up a fortune in land, accumulating 
it by means of copyholds or accensements and reclamations, 
as well as by purchase. They owned fine farms well stocked 
with cattle, like the one which belonged to the Chan- 
cellor d’Orgement at Gonesse (1358). They sometimes even 
rivalled the great nobles ; Jacques Coeur possessed twenty-five 
lordships, and the Chancellor, Nicolas Rolin, was one of the 
greatest landowners in Burgundy. Bladelin, the Treasurer 
of Philip the Good, employed a large part of his fortune in 
draining ‘* polders.”? The middle and lower ranks of the 
bourgeoisie, and even the urban artisans, followed the 
example of these great bourgeois, coveted land, and appro- 
priated numerous holdings; the communes did the same. 
Thus a London mercer, in the fifteenth century, leaves 
several manors to his children, and a cook, a blacksmith, 
and a dyer of York all have small landed properties. This 
state of affairs was still more frequent in France, the Low 
Countries, Italy, and the Rhineland, where there was no 
burgess, however humble, who did not dream of a little 
estate and a country house. 

Among the rural classes the number of small proprietors 
also went on increasing in the West, although it diminished 
in Eastern and Northern Europe, where they had been very 
numerous. In the West of Europe a rural third estate came 
into being, sometimes, as in Central and Northern Italy, 
favoured by the public authorities, who reserved to it the 
right of pre-emption in the purchase of non-noble lands. 

820 


* 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


In France so greedy was the peasant for land that, in the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 60 per cent. of the changes 
in landownership in certain provinces took place in his 
favour, and in the end peasant proprietors occupied a fifth, 
and in some parts as much as a third, of the soil. It is true 
that the peasants were able to build up only very small 
properties; peasant owners, holding from ten to fifty 
hectares with several yokes of oxen, formed in some regions 
no more than a sixth of the total peasant population. 
In England these freeholders or franklins, whose jolly 
countenances live again in the pages of Chaucer, dwelt on 
estates averaging eighty acres, which brought them in about 
£20 a year. In the German Rhineland the little peasant 
estates contained no more than about twenty to thirty acres 
each. Most of the small peasant proprietors had only 
moderate incomes, to which the growing morcellement was a 
constant menace. In the Rhineland, for instance, the size 
of the holding diminished by three-quarters in the course of 
this period. All the tenacity and economy of the peasants 
was needed to prevent the dissolution of these small rural 
properties, which they, nevertheless, consolidated and ex- 
tended by slow degrees. 

The great mass of the rural populations was then 
composed of censitaires who had not an absolute property 
in the land, but held it in perpetual usufruct. In the 
West of Europe they had gained their liberty, and no 
one dared any longer to contest it. In England hardly one 
per cent. of the rural population was unfree. In France it 
was a sacred maxim that every Frenchman was born free. 
In the Low Countries the échevins of Ypres declared proudly 
that among them ‘‘ never was there heard tell of folk of 
servile condition nor of mortemain.’’ Commutation spread 
with renewed activity; for example, in France after the 
Hundred Years’ War, and in all regions in which there 
prevailed the old systems of mixed farming, which required 
a great deal of labour. Free censitatres or copyholders were 
by the end of the Middle Ages cultivating five-sixths of the 
soil in different parts of France, and a third of it in England. 
It was rarely that they were unable to obtain advantageous 
terms, which assured them, together with the divers pre- 
rogatives of civil liberty, the majority of the effective rights 

321 = 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


of property, such as alienation and succession, while limiting 
their labour services and dues. 

But even in the West a social and economic evaltind 
was on foot, which was, in part, unfavourable to them. On 
the one hand, landowners, clergy, lords, and burgesses 
took advantage of the troublous times to try and increase 
the obligations of their tenants, or to take away the 
guarantees and advantages which had been granted to them, 
to the point of menacing them with a return to villeinage or 
serfdom. On the other hand, they deprived the villeins of 
that stability which they had always enjoyed. The fact was 
that the new practices—the substitution of pasture-farm- 
ing for mixed farming, and that of métayage or lease- 
hold farming or the direct farming of the estate by the 
lord for the old method of accensement, the appro- 
priation of commons by great landlords by means of 
the enclosure system—dall contributed to make the 
assistance of censitaires less indispensable. They soon 
became a positive nuisance to all the large landowners who 
wanted to increase their revenues and diminish the cost of 
labour. Attempts were, therefore, made to evict them, to 
profit by their temporary difficulties, or by their failure to 
execute the clauses of their contract, as well as by their 
impoverishment or desertion, to take back their holdings into 
the lord’s hands. All over the West a considerable number 
of these censitaires and copyhold tenants, thus deprived of 


the land which they cultivated, went to swell the ranks of — 


the agricultural wage-earners or proletariat, notably in 
England. A vast number of others, in Central and Eastern 
Kurope, were even more unfortunate, and fell back into the 
condition of the villeins, or, worse still, of the serfs in the 
previous period. 

In Western Europe, where such a retrogression was no 
longer possible on account of the level reached by manners 
and civilization, new classes grew up at the expense of the 
censitatres, some farming by themselves or in partnership, 
others seeking a means of existence in the sale of their 
labour. 

Farming as a free business enteeseian the so-called 
fermage or tenant-farming, became a speculation which was 
readily taken up by the rich bourgeoisie, who contracted for 

822 


Poa re iy 
ee On ee mre es 


PLATE VIII 


HARVEST 
(Early 16th Century) 


[ face p. 322 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


the cultivation of the lands of the Church and the nobility, 
and made themselves administrators of fermes générales, vast 
domains belonging to individuals or to corporations. Soon 
the most enterprising section of the rural third estate 
developed a taste for this system, and side by side with 
these big contract farmers, there appeared a growing number 
of small farmers, farming landed estates less wide in extent. 
In Italy, the Low Countries, the German Rhineland, England, 
and France (where it became general in the provinces of the 
Parisian basin, Champagne, Picardy, and Orléanais), and in 
the East tenant-farming made considerable progress under 
the two forms of agricultural leases and stock leases (called 
bail a cheptel in France, and socida in Italy). The latter were 
signed for one year, or sometimes for three to five years; the 
former were sometimes concluded for life, and sometimes 
for one or more generations, but tended to become restricted 
to shorter terms: seventy years in England, thirty to fifty 
years in France, six to twenty-nine years in Italy. Some- 
times the rent payable by the farmer was fixed, sometimes 
it varied with the produce of the farm, and the rate was 
more or less high according to agreement. It was as low 
as a quarter or even an eighth of the land rent in Provence, 
and stood at 3°18 per cent. and 2°33 per cent. of the revenue. 
in various other districts of France; while in England, where, 
from the fifteenth century, the farmers were, above all, big 
graziers, the figure mounted steadily, enriching landlords 
and tenants alike. 

Co-operative farming (mezzadria, colonat partiaire, métay- 
age) grew in some districts more widely than tenant-farming, 
notably in Italy, the South and West of France, Eastern 
Spain, and the Rhineland. It was a method more easily 
accessible to peasants without capital, and it sometimes gave 
them appreciable advantages, in cases where the demand for 
labour was greater than the supply, and where it was 
necessary to bring uncultivated or ill-cultivated lands 
under the plough. In Provence and Italy there were a 
number of métayers who had to pay only a fifth, a fourth, 
a tenth part of the produce of their farms, or even a rent 
which varied from year to year with the harvest. But more 
often they had to pay a strict half of the land rent to the 
lord, and their economic independence was far less than that 

823 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


of the fermier or ordinary tenant-farmer. In Tuscany they 
were forbidden to emigrate to the towns and to leave the 
land without having paid their debts, and the disciplinary 
powers of the landowner over them were not sensibly dis- 
similar from those formerly exercised by the lord over the 
free villein. It is true that the métayer only alienated his 
liberty for a short period, a year, or sometimes longer—for 
instance, ten years in Provence; but, on the other hand, he 
enjoyed neither the stability of the old censitaire nor the 
privileged position of the independent farmer. 

The different forms of agricultural wage labour developed 
yet more widely than tenant-farming and métayage towards 
the close of the Middle Ages. The ranks of the free day 
labourers, who had appeared during the preceding period, 
were swelled by evicted censitaires and peasants who had 
no resources other than the sale of their labour, and by 
others, like the German kossaten and the English cotters, 
whose tiny holdings (sometimes only three or four acres) 
were too small for their entire support. Hiring themselves 


out by the day or the week, or on-taskwork, these brassiers, _ 


varlets, labourers, servants in husbandry (as they were 
called in different places), often set a high price on their 
services, when labour became scarce after some great 
epidemic, such as the Black Death. But although free they 
were still subject to strict regulation. In Italy, France, Spain, 
and England, Draconian laws, such as the Italian municipal 
statutes, the French ordinance of 1350, and the famous 
English Statutes of Labourers (1850-1417), punished all who 
refused to work by heavy fines and even by imprisonment, 
allowed them to be taken by force, and sometimes to be 
thrown into chains if they left their work, forbade them to 
change their domicile, or to apprentice their sons, and fixed 
their wages. The theoretical freedom of these wage-earners 
did not prevent them from being tied hand and foot by 
iron laws, which the public authorities claimed the right to 
impose upon them, laws from whose clutches they only 
succeeded in escaping when the urgent need for labour 
obliged their employers to capitulate. 

The class of domestic and farm servants also grew in 
numbers; hired by the month or year, they enjoyed more 
stable conditions, and were protected. from unemployment 

324 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


and from the rise in price of the necessities of life, since they 
were lodged, fed, and clothed; but domestic service in those 
days, although based upon freedom of contract, was exceed- 
ingly restricted by the authoritarian traditions of the past, 
which obliged the servant to remain in his place until he 
had obtained. permission to leave, and which even conferred 
upon the master the right of corporal punishment. 

Finally, the more undisciplined and adventurous ele- 
ments, or those less apt for labour or less industrious, 
formed henceforth a rural proletariat analogous to the 
urban proletariat, and, like the latter, often became tramps 
and beggars. Medieval society bequeathed to the modern 
world these two evils, destined to grow worse, and the re- 
doubtable problem of pauperism was already appearing in 
the country in as acute a form as in the town. 

Sporadically in the West and in enormous proportions in 
the Centre, North, and East of Europe, a real retrogression 
was, indeed, going on. Serfdom, which had been declining 
and seemed on the point of extinction, took on a new vigour 
when the scarcity of labour made itself felt. It was ex- 
tirpated with greater difficulty in the less populous districts 
of Western Europe, where it had survived, and it established 
itself and advanced in a great part of the continent to the 
East and North. | 

In the West, where it survived in the attenuated form of 
mainmorte, which fell rather on the land than on the 
person of the serf, it maintained itself obstinately in Friuli, 
Montferrat, Piedmont, Aragon, the Balearic Isles, and Upper 
Catalonia, the Limousine March, Champagne, the Nivernais, 
and divers regions in the East of France, in Luxemburg, 
Namurois, Drenthe, Guelders, and Over-Yssel ; and it still lay 
upon one per cent. of the rural population of England. In the 
Spanish states the hard-working Moslem population of mude- 
jares, as well as the Jews, who, in the preceding period, had 
enjoyed extensive franchises, were now reduced to serfdom. 

But it was, above all, in the rest of Europe that a re- 
naissance of serfdom took place, favoured by the rising in- 
fluence of the feudal classes. In the North of Germany, 
notably in Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and Brandenburg, and 
even in the Austrian lands, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, 
not only the old Slav populations, but also a large number 

325 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


of villeins (hérigen) of other race fell into serfdom (leibei- 
genschaft). It often happened that the mere fact of living 
on servile land was sufficient to bring about the loss of 
liberty. ‘* The air alone makes serfs,’’ ran a German saying. 
The peasant, thus pushed into serfdom and despoiled of his 
old customary rights and commons, was reduced, as a proverb 
of Brandenburg expressed it, to wishing long life to the 
junker’s horses, lest he might conceive the notion of riding 
on his tenants. 

In Hungary, Transylvania, Poland, and Denmark the 
rural populations, among. whom freemen had once pre- 
dominated, were reduced to serfdom by the invading aristo- 
cracies. In Serbia, Roumania, and Bulgaria and in the old 
Eastern Empire the liberty of the peasant disappeared in 
like manner, and the cultivator, assimilated to the Byzan- 
tine paroikos, became the most miserable peasant in Europe, 
the forerunner of the Turkish rayah. In Muscovy alone the 
necessities of colonization were able to maintain the inhabi- 
tants of the countryside in a condition analogous to that 
of the villein or colonus. Russian serfdom is a modern 
institution. But, on the other hand, the Muscovites, 
Lithuanians, and Poles reduced all their prisoners to slavery— 
pagans or Moslems, Finns, Tartars, or Turks. At the same 
time the slave trade woke into life again in the South of 
Kurope, Italy, and Spain, even in the French provinces of 
the Mediterranean littoral, at the expense of the paynims, 
and sometimes provided landowners with a considerable con- 
tingent of cultivators. There were as many as 20,000 of these 
slaves in Majorca, and Italian statutes show that in Sicily, 
Tuscany, Venetia, and Istria slave labour was more than 
once called in to supplement the scarcity of free labour.. 

The many crises of all kinds which marked the close of 
the Middle Ages and gave rise now to anarchy and misery, 
now to conflicts between landlords and labourers, aristocrats 
and peasants menaced with serfdom, filled the rural world 
at this period with an effervescence similar to that which was 
disturbing the towns. The second half of the fourteenth 
century, and to a less extent the first half of the fifteenth, 
were marked by constant risings, usually without either 
programme, unity, or direction, mere anarchical and bloody 
manifestations of the suffering and hatred of the people. 

826 


/ 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


Such, in particular, was the character of the famous revolt 
of the French peasants, the Jacques, as they were called, 
whom the nobility mocked and despised and drove to 
desperation by their brigandage. In the spring of 1358, at 
a time when the prestige of the nobles had been shaken by 
the disaster of Poitiers (1356), the peasants of the North of 
France, Normandy, the fIle-de-France, Picardy, Brie, 
Kastern Champagne, and the country round Soissons, rose 
under the leadership of an old soldier, Guillaume Cale, 
burned hundreds of castles, spread pillage, fire, and some- 
times murder far and wide, and even aroused the sympathy 
of the lesser bourgeoisie in towns such as Rouen, Senlis, 
Amiens, Meaux, and Paris itself (May 28th to June 16th). 
According to Froissart 100,000 men took up arms, but the 
peasants were crushed by the nobles at Meaux and at Cler- 
mont-sur-Oise and fell back again into their miserable state. 
The aristocratic classes revenged themselves by executing 
20,000 hapless creatures in cold blood, and crushed the re- 
bellious villages beneath fines. The Jacquerie seems to have 
formulated no precise demands. The same thing happened 
twenty years later in the revolt of the Tuchins, which spread 
from Upper Italy as far as the central plateau of France 
and Poitou, though its chief centre was in Languedoc. 
Peasants and artisans made common cause, and organized 
a sort of guerilla warfare in heaths and woods, which dragged 
on for six years (1879-1385); they ill-treated all who had 
not horny hands, and, finally, succumbed to a pitiless re- 
pression. The English, in their turn, for a brief space 
masters of Western France, where they ravaged the country- 
side, provoked jacqueries in Maine, Cotentin, and Normandy, 
the best known of which was directed by the peasant 
Cantepie (1424-1432), and drowned the land in blood. 

Other rural revolutions had a better defined and some- 
times a more widely socialistic character than those of 
France. In Spain the serfs (pageses de remensa) of Upper 
Catalonia thrice took up arms between 1895 and 1479 against 
‘the nobles and clergy who oppressed them, and _ finally 
succeeded in winning their freedom, thanks to the interven- 
tion of the Crown. Less fortunate, the peasants (foreros) of 
Majorca, in spite of four insurrections (1891-1477), the most 
violent of which was directed by a labourer named Tort 

827 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


Ballester, did not succeed in preventing the appropriation 
of rural property by the bourgeoisie, nor in obtaining better 
conditions of labour for censitaires and day labourers. Some 
were massacred or left the country, the rest were obliged to 
submit. 

In the Low Countries the jacquerie of maritime Flanders, 
which lasted from 1822 to 1828, had already displayed all the 
characteristics of a class war, which ranged the free peasants, 
menaced with serfdom, against the nobles, and was accom- 
panied by unexampled violence on both sides. The rural 
populations, though beaten, succeeded in consolidating their 
freedom. Henceforth they upheld the princely power against 
the towns, and thus increased their influence and won a 
right to exist for rural industry. But in the East the 
principality of Liége was, in 1458, the scene of the strange 
revolt of the cluppelslagers, who took a ploughshare for 
their badge and wore it on their caps, and whose complaint 
was against the abuses of feudal justice and taxation. 

The two most original rural revolutions were those of the 
English labourers and of the peasants of Bohemia. The 
English Peasants’ Revolt, provoked by oppressive legisla- 
tion which obliged labourers and artisans to work for fixed 
wages and to remain in their jobs, was fanned by the preach- 
ing of revolutionary mystics, poor priests imbued with 
Wycliffite doctrines, such as John Ball and Jack Straw. 
Villeins discontented with their labour services also joined 
the movement, and the government, by imposing a 
graduated poll tax, which fell heavily on the poorer classes 
(1377-80), set a light to the terrible conflagration which 
made every owner of property tremble. A village artisan, 
an old soldier named Wat Tyler, led the rebels, who raised 
the eastern and south-eastern counties and even part of 
the north. Straw and Ball were the theorists of the revolu- 
tion. In the name of the Bible they preached the spoliation 
of the nobility, clergy, and bourgeoisie, the abolition of serf- 
dom and of all social distinctions, the equality of rank and 
the community of property. But the rebels had, in reality, 
no common programme or uniform line of conduct; in one 
place they confined themselves to abolishing labour services 
and pulling down enclosures; in another they condemned 
themselves by acts of pillage and anarchy. At one moment 

328 


oi ee 


ae oi ee a 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


they were masters of London and of King Richard II 
(June 13-14, 1880); but they allowed themselves to be dis- 
armed by the promise of charters of enfranchisement, and in 
a few days the revolt collapsed, to be followed by a bloody 
repression. The crown, satisfied with the annulment of con- 
cessions which had been wrung from it by violence, con- 
tented itself with executing the revolutionary leaders, but 
was not always strong enough to arrest a blind reaction. 
Calm was re-established for sixty years. The short rising of 
the Kentish peasants, led by the adventurer Jack Cade 
(June 12th, 1450), was not as serious as that of 1880, 
although it gave rise to grave disturbances in London. 

Bolder still, and of far longer duration and wider scope, 
was the Hussite Revolt, which was in part a religious and 
in part a social movement. Under cover of the religious 
reformation preached by John Huss, and of a national re- 
action against their German aristocracy, the Czech peasants, 
joining forces with the lesser nobility and led by two illus- 
trious warriors, Ziska and Procopius the Great, dominated 
Central Europe for twenty years (1418-1437). They created 
a Puritan democracy which proclaimed the equality of man, 
the liberation of the country districts from the yoke of 
feudalism, and the secularization of the goods of the clergy. 
But this democracy brought about its own ruin by falling 
under the influence of the extreme radicalism of the sect of 
Taborites, who ordained the absolute levelling of all social 
distinctions, whether of fortune, birth, or intelligence, the 
full emancipation of women, the suppression of private 
property, marriage and the family—in fact, a complete 
system of communism. The Hussite Revolt, abandoned by 
the native bourgeoisie and the lesser nobility, who had at 
first supported it, was then crushed at the Battle of Lipany, 
leaving the ground clear for feudal reaction and serfdom. 

It had given rise to an immense effervescence in the 
heart of Europe, which spread to the East of France and, 
in particular, to Germany, where the peasants rose without 
success in Saxony, Silesia, Brandenburg, the Rhineland 
(1482), and in Carinthia, Styria, and far Transylvania 
(1437). Finally, in the Scandinavian countries, although 
the free peasants of Sweden, in alliance with the local 
nobility, and led by Engelbrechtson, carried out a success- 

829 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


ful revolt against the establishment of serfdom (1487-40) 
and even seized the reins of government, in Denmark three 
great peasant risings, between 1340 and 1441, resulted only 
in fixing the yoke of the German aristocracy still more 
heavily upon the Danish peasant, who was reduced first 
to villeinage and then to the harshest serfdom. 

Thus in the greater part of Europe, as a result either of 
these social changes or of the scourge of war and disease, 
the condition of the rural classes would seem to have grown 
worse, especially in the East, Centre, and North of the 
Continent, and even in certain parts of the West, in Scot- 
land, Ireland, Navarre, Aragon, and, above all, in France. 
Most of the French provinces were ruined; the population 
diminished by a half; and even Languedoc, although far 
from the scene of hostilities, lost a third of its inhabitants. 
In the days of Charles VII, the Bishop of Lisieux describes 
the frightful misery of the northern countryside, where 
emaciated peasants, covered with rags, wandered in the 
midst of the deserted fields. The Englishman Fortescue 
boasts, in 1450, of the contrast between the destitution of 
the cultivators in the most fertile country in the world and 
the well-being of the peasantry across the Channel. 

In a few countries, however, the rural districts were more 
favourably situated; for instance, in Bohemia before the 
Hussite wars, and in Poland, under Casimir the Great and 
the Jagellons. It was, above all, Italy, Spain, the Low 
Countries, Germany, and England which were most success- 
ful in preserving and increasing their former prosperity. In 
these countries the different classes of the rural population 
enjoyed, in general, a certain degree of ease and comfort. 
The day labourers themselves benefited by the higher wages, 
which had doubled and trebled in Italy, as in France, 
England, and Germany. In England they demanded to be 
paid in money, and to work only five days a week. In the 
Rhine and Danube lands the daily agricultural wage was 
equivalent in purchasing power to the price of a pig or 
sheep, nine to seven pounds of. meat, or a pair of shoes, 
and the annual wage of a servant to the price of an ox or 
twenty sheep. In England the small peasant proprietors, 
yeomen or franklins, and the small tenant-farmers often 
enjoyed an annual income of £70 or £80, and sent their sons 

330 


THE PEASANT REVOLTS 


to college. The conditions of material life were still further 
improved, if not in respect of housing and furniture, at any 
rate, in respect of clothes, and especially of food, which was 
plentiful and even abundant in the country districts of 
England, Flanders, and the Rhineland. 

One of the most striking indications of this prosperity 
in the rural districts was the prompt reconstitution of the 
population in these favoured areas. Between 1450 and 1500 
Italy, that ‘‘ full fair and pleasant land,’’ reached a total 
of nine to eleven million souls, a third of whom dwelt in the 
two Sicilies, more than a third in Upper Italy, and a tenth 
in Tuscany. The Castilian states numbered seven and a half 
million inhabitants; Catalonia and Roussillon, 300,000; and 
the whole Spanish peninsula about ten million. The Southern 
Netherlands, in which the marvellous fertility of the soil and 
the prosperity of the people were admired by all beholders, 
contained over three million souls, a half of whom belonged 
to Flanders and Brabant. England recovered the two and a 
half million inhabitants whom she had had before the Black 
Death, and her peasants were among the most prosperous in 
the Western world. While Bohemia lost half a million 
out of her three million inhabitants in the Hussite wars, 
Germany, in the fifteenth century, numbered some twelve 
millions, and was not to know such prosperity again for 
three centuries and a half. The progress of this part of the 
West sufficed to preserve for Western Europe the economic 
supremacy which it had already won in the domain of rural 
labour. 

It was in this direction that there was to be continued 
in modern times an evolution which had little by little pro- 
foundly transformed the lot of the working classes, an evolu- 
tion of which the birth and progress are, perhaps, the most 
important events in the history of the Middle Ages. 


331 


CONCLUSION 


THE history of labour in the Middle Ages began with a far 
more terrible shock than that which marked the end of this 
long period. The latter was only an accident of growth, 
whereas the former very nearly brought about a complete 
stop in the march of civilization. The barbarian invasions 
let loose a real disaster. In two hundred years the ordered 
edifice of the Roman and Christian Empire, under the shelter 
of which labour had grown and prospered, was overset from 
roof to foundation in the West, and formidably sapped in 
the East. Ruins lay everywhere; anarchy took the place 
of order, and the reign of force succeeded to that of law; 
production in all its forms was arrested, the treasury of 
wealth accumulated by former generations was scattered; 
economic and social progress .ceased. A blind work of 
destruction was all that was accomplished by these bar- 
barians, whose sole useful influence was to provoke a 
salutary reaction among the chosen few who preserved the 
tradition and the remnants of civilization. 

It was in the East that those few took up once more the 
work of Rome. The Byzantine Empire, opposing to bar- 
barism a bulwark which remained for long insurmountable, 
brought the people back to the land, gave an immense impetus 
to colonization, commerce, and industry, once more opened 
the sources of wealth, abolished slavery, fixed men to the 
soil, and set light once again to the smouldering hearth of 
civilization. In four centuries it won the barbarian popula- 
tions of Eastern Europe to civilization, and acted as the 
teacher of the West, which had sunk halfway back into 
barbarism. The West itself undertook a more obscure task, 
but one which was fertile in results. It set on foot the first 
agricultural colonization which carried the frontiers of a new 
Christendom to the Elbe and the Lowlands of Scotland. In 
the framework of a natural and manorial economy, it sought 
to revive economic activity, substituting serfdom for slavery 
and, like the Eastern Empire, establishing the mass of the 
population in great domains, under conditions of stability 

832 


CONCLUSION 


and relative security. But it was unable to give to trade, 
industrial production, and urban economy the same vitality 
as its rival. 

On all sides the aristocracy had grown and taken posses- 
sion of the greater part of the land, which, for the most part, 
passed from collective to individual ownership. In the 
Kast this aristocracy did not succeed in obtaining complete 
political power as well as social influence and economic 
supremacy. In the West, collecting in its hands all the 
forms of authority, it became a feudal class. The clerical 
and military caste, which saved the people from the dangers 
of the last invasions in the ninth and tenth centuries, brought 
about the triumph of a new form of organized labour—to 
wit, the feudal economy, which grew out of the economy 
of the previous period, and was every whit as oppressive. In 
the name of the protection which they claimed to secure for 
the masses, the feudal classes chained men to the soil or to 
the workshops, claimed to regulate every sort of activity, 
divided the fruits of labour as they pleased, and weighed 
down the multitudes under the yoke of a capricious and 
tyrannical authority, though obliged to allow them a mini- 
mum of material advantages. At the end of two centuries 
Christendom emerged from the isolation, in which it was kept 
by these thousands of local governments with their narrow 
horizons, and the framework of feudal economy began to 
break up in all directions. 

There followed the golden age of the Middle Ages, and 
one of the finest periods in the history of human labour. It 
lasted for 250 years (twelfth to fourteenth centuries). Com- 
mercial activity began again and increased enormously, as 
also did industrial production, and they gave an immense 
impulse to movable wealth and to town life. The working 
classes, grouped in the towns, set to work the irresistible 
force of their revolutionary unions, and conquered both 
liberty and power. They encased industrial production in 
a strong armour of free crafts and sworn corporations. For 
the first time millions of emancipated workers learned the 
formidable power of association, won recognition for the 
social value of their labour, and raised themselves to a level 
of material and moral existence unknown to their forebears. 

Following their example and impelled by new needs, the 

333 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


rural classes, whose co-operation assured the success of one 
of the greatest works accomplished in the whole history of 
mankind, the colonization of Christian Europe, emancipated 
themselves in their turn and conquered all those civil and 
economic liberties, of which they had hitherto been 
deprived. They began to gain access to the ownership of 
property, they improved the conditions of their existence, 
they often attained to ease and well-being. ‘They were 
associated in the work of local administration, and they 
rose in the social hierarchy. Finally, taking up the role 
which the enfeebled East was no longer able to perform, 
Western civilization transformed in its own image the 
economic and social régime of the young countries in the 
Centre, North, and East of Europe, the new provinces of 
Christendom. 

But during the last hundred years of the Middle Ages, a 
crisis threatened the solidity of the new edifice, in which 
labour was prospering. Nations and states strove with one 
another; anarchy reappeared; and in the midst of the dis- 
orders national economy reaped the heritage of feudal and 
urban economy. ‘Terrible natural scourges, carrying off half 
the population of Europe, brought about a momentary 
scarcity of labour. The primitive unity of the urban classes 
was more and more shaken. The formation and steady 
advance of the capitalist bourgeoisie, of international com- 
merce, and of the great industry, accelerated industrial 
production and trade, but gave rise to the formidable 
problems of wage labour and pauperism. The interests of 
master craftsmen and journeymen fell apart, and they 
opposed union to union. The class war raged in the towns, 
where revolutions broke out, which had for object now the 
reform of abuses on the part of the authorities, now the 
conquest of power, now a new social order. They died out 
by degrees; the central power re-established order; in one 
part of Europe the rise of wages and the increase of wealth 
allowed the masses, the small masters, and the workmen to 
retain or recover the prosperity of the preceding period. 

At the same time agricultural colonization, arrested in a 
certain number of regions, which were a prey to war and 
anarchy, went on apace in others. The activity of produc- 
tion was sometimes turned into new channels. Land finally 

834 


CONCLUSION 


passed into the hands of the state, the great proprietors, the 
bourgeoisie, and even to a small extent into that of the 
peasants, while the feudal class grew poorer, and the class 
of censitaires gained a partial hold upon the soil. New 
forms of agricultural exploitation, tenant-farming, métayage, 
and hired labour received a certain extension. Serfdom, 
which died out in the most civilized part of Europe, revived 
again elsewhere. A proletariat and a problem of pauperism 
appeared in the country districts. Peasant revolts, blind 
risings, due to misery, or violent attempts to bring about 
social changes, broke out on many sides, incoherent and 
ineffective manifestations of the distress of the rural classes. 
Nevertheless, calm reappeared. In the more privileged 
regions of the West the prosperity of the country districts 
equalled that of the towns. But in the greater part of 
Europe the horizon was dark, and the world of labour lived 
in the midst of inquietude, on the eve of new shocks, which 
were destined to retard its ascendancy in modern times. 

The work accomplished by medieval civilization never- 
theless remained intact in all its main outlines. During this 
millennium two-thirds of the soil of Kurope was conquered by 
colonization; population doubled; agricultural production 
increased to vast proportions; individual ownership in its 
diverse forms replaced the primitive system of tribal, village, 
or family property. The bourgeois and rural classes them- 
selves attained to the possession of landed capital. Movable 
wealth, as a result of the increase of commerce and of in- 
dustrial production, developed anew, and was scattered 
among a crowd of possessors. But the capital fact which 
emerges, and which gives to this age its unforgettable im- 
portance, is the attainment of freedom by the urban and 
rural classes. 

For the first time the masses, ceasing to be mere herds 
without rights or thoughts of their own, became associations 
of freemen, proud of their independence, conscious of the 
value and dignity of their labour, fitted by their intelligent 
activity to collaborate in all spheres, political, economic, 
and social, in the tasks which the aristocracies believed them- 
selves alone able to fulfil. Not only was the power of produc- 
tion multiplied a hundredfold by their efforts, but society 
was regenerated by the incessant influx of new and vigorous 

335 


LIFE AND WORK IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE 


blood. Social selection was henceforth better assured. It 
was thanks to the devotion and spirit of these medieval 
masses that the nations became conscious of themselves, 
for it was they who brought about the triumph of national 
patriotism, just as their local patriotism had burned for town 
or village in the past. The martyrdom of a peasant girl 
from the marshes of Lorraine saved the first of the great 
nations, France, which had become the most brilliant home 
of civilization in the Middle Ages. They gave to the modern 
states their first armies, which were superior to those of 
feudal chivalry. Above all, it was they who prepared the 
advent of democracy and bequeathed to the labouring masses 
the instruments of their power, the principles of freedom 
and of association. Labour, of old despised and depreciated, 
became a power of incomparable force in the world, and its 
social value became increasingly recognized. It is from the 
Middle Ages that this capital evolution takes its date, and it 
is this which makes this period, so often misunderstood, and 
so full of a confused but singularly powerful activity, the most 
important in the universal history of labour before the great 
changes witnessed by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 


336 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


THERE are thousands of works relating to the economic history of the 
Middle Ages. The three following bibliographies will give some idea 
of their number in the case of France, Spain, and England : 


P. BoissonnaDE, Les Etudes relatives 4 l’histoire économique de la 
France au moyen dge (141 pp., Paris, 1902).—Les Etudes 
relatives a V’histoire économique de l’Espagne (158 pp., Paris, 
1913).—H. Hari, A Short Bibliography of English Medieval 
Economic History (850 pp., London, 1914). 


GENERAL WORKS 


. ALEXINSKY, La Russie et l’Europe (Paris, 1917). 


. ALLEN, Histoire de Danemark, trad. Beauvoise (2 vols., Paris, 
1889). | 


R. ALtamirA, Historia de Espana y de la civilizacién espanola (4 vols., 
2nd ed., Barcelona, 1909). 


, Historia de la propriedad comunal (Madrid, 1890). 
. BeLocnu, Die Bevélkerung Europas im Mittelalter (1888). 
. BLox, History of the Netherlands, vol. I (1904). 


. BucHER, Die Entstehung der Volkswirthschaft (Leipzig, 1906). 
French translation by Hansay (Brussels). English translation 
by S. M. Wickett, Industrial Evolution. 


J. Caro, Geschichte Polens (Gotha, 1840 ff.). 
F. CHALANDON, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie (2 vols., 
Paris, 1907). 
W. CunnincuaM, Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects (Cam- 
bridge, 1908). 
Cu. Dieu, Byzance (Paris, 1919). 
E. GeEVER, Histoire de la Suede (French trans., Paris, 1840). 
E. pE GirarpD, Histoire de l’économie sociale jusqu’d la fin du XVI° 
siécle (Paris, 1900). 
K. Incram, History of Slavery and Serfdom (1896). 
K. JizeceKx, Geschichte der Bulgaren (Prague, 1876). 
, Geschichte der Serben (Vienna, 1912). 
837 Z 


QQ 


At 


OH hy b> 


ney 


Qo 


Sim ig] > Mm fy 


vA ag: Sage > Re 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


. KovaLevsky, Die ékonomische Entwicklung Europas (6 vols., 


Leipzig, 1896-1910). [Deals only with the six great countries 
of the West, and treats only the juridical side, excluding 
commerce and the phenomena of production; nevertheless, the 
best work of this nature. } 


. LacomBeE, Essai sur le passage de la propriété collective a la 


propriété privée (Paris, 1900). 


. Prrenne, Histoire de Belgique, tomes I-II (2nd ed., Brussels, 


1910-12). 


. RAMBAUD, L’Empire grec au X® siécle (1870). 


, History of Russia, trans. L. B. Lang (1886). 


. SALVIOLI, Storia del diritto di proprieta (Milan, 1914). 


Sayous, Histoire générale des Hongrois (6 vols., 2nd ed., 
1900). 


. TRAILL (ed.), Social England, vols. I-III (1896 ff.). 
. XENOPOL, Histoire des Roumains (2 vols., Paris, 1896). 


WORKS RELATING TO THE 
ORGANIZATION OF PROPERTY, AGRICULTURE, 
AND THE RURAL CLASSES 


. ABRAM, Social England in the Fifteenth Century (1909). 
. ALLARD, Les origines du servage en France (Paris, 1918). 


BACHFAHL, Zur altisten Wirtschaftstand und Socialgeschichte 
Béhmens (Leipzig, 1891). 


. BEAUCHET, Histoire de la propriété fonciére en Suéde (Paris, - 


1904). 


. Brants, Histoire des classes rurales aux Pays-Bas, etc. (Louvain 


and Paris; 1880). 


. Bruraits, Etude sur la condition des populations rurales du 


Roubsillon au moyen age (1891). 


. CaGGESE, Classe e comuni rurali nel medio evo Italiano (2 oe 5 


1909). 


. CARDENAS, Ensayo sobre la historia de la propiedad territorial en 


Espana (2 vols., Madrid, 18'78). 


. Cuénon, Etude sur l’histoire des alleux en France (1888). 
. DELISLE, Etudes sur la condition de la classe agricole et l’état de 


Vagriculture en. Normandie (2nd ed., Paris, 1912). 


. Denis, Huss et la guerre des Hussites (Paris, 1878). 


Dépscu, Die wirtschaftsentwicklung der Karolingerzeit (Inns- 
bruck, 1912). 

FUSTEL DE COoULANGES, Histoire des institutions politiques de 
Vancienne France, tomes III-IV (Paris, 1887-90). 


TH. VON DER GOLTZ, Geschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft 


(Leipzig, 1909). 
338 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


R. Granp, Le contrat de complant (Paris, 1917). 
HanaueEr, Les Paysans de l’Alsace au moyen dge (Paris, 1865). 


L. HartTMAnn, Zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte Italiens im friihen Mittel- 
alter (Gotha, 1904). 

E. pE Hinososa, El Régimen Senorial en Catalutia durante la edad 
media (Madrid, 1905). 

K. INAMA STERNEGG, Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte (2nd ed., 6 vols., 
Leipzig, 1909). 

P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland (1906). 


J. Kien, The Mesta: a study in Spanish economic history (Harvard 
Econ. Studies, 1920). 

K. LAMPRECHT, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben in Mittelalter (3 vols., 
Leipzig, 18'79-99). 

, Etudes sur l'état économique de la France au XI® siécle, 

trad. Marignan (Paris, 1889). 

E. Lesng, La propriété ecclésiastique en France pendant la période 
mérovingienne (Paris, 1910). 

S. Luce, Histoire de la Jacquerie (2nd ed., Paris, 1894). 

J. MAckINTOSH, History of Civilisation in Scotland (2nd ed., 1900). 

F. W. MaITLANnD, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897; 2nd ed., 1907). 

H. Marczaui, Ungarische Verfassungsgeschichte (Tiibingen, 1910). 

E. Martin, Histoire économique de l’Angleterre (2 vols., 1912). 

J. Mortreuit, Histoire du droit byzantin (8 vols., Paris, 1843). 

P. MEITZEN, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der Germanen, etc. (8 vols., 
Leipzig, 1895 ff.). 

P. Mityuxov, Essais sur l’histoire de la civilisation russe (Paris, 
1901). 


P. NeGcuLesco, Histoire du droit et des institutions de la Roumanie, 
tome I (Paris, 1898). 


C. NEUMANN, L’Empire byzantin et sa situation mondiale (X°-XI° 
_siécle) (French trans., Paris, 1895). 


M. Novakovitcu, La zadruga chez les Serbes (Paris, 1906). 

A. PaumieRI, Laboratori del contado Bolognese. durante le signorie 
(1909). 

PAPARIGOPOULOS, Histoire de la civilisation byzantine (Paris, 1876). 


E. Perez Pusoi, Historia de las instituciones sociales de la Espata 
Goda (4 vols., Valencia, 1896). 


K. Raxkovski, Entstehung des Grossgrundbesitzes in Polen (Posen, 
1899). 


A. R&VILLE and C. Petit-DuTAILuis, Le soulévement des travailleurs 
d’Angleterre (Paris, 1898). 


J. E. THoroip RoceErs, History of Agriculture and Prices in England 
(7 vols., Oxford, 1866-1902). 


G. SaLvioii, Storia economica d’Italia nel alto medio evo (Naples, 
1918). 


889 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


H. Se&é, Les classes rurales et le régime domanial en France (Paris, 
1901). 
F. Seesoum, The English Village Community (1883). 
, The Tribal System in Wales (2nd ed., 1904). 
L. VERRIEST, Le servage en Hainaut (Brussels, 1910). 
P. VinoGRADOFF, English Society in the Eleventh Century (Oxford, 
1908). 
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, Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892). 
WrainatTz, Die agrarverhiltnisse mittelalterlichen Serbiens (Jena, 
1905). 
ZACHARIZ, Historie Juris Greco-Romani delineatio (Heidelburg, 
1839). 
M. Dounar-ZAPOoLskI, Economic History of Russia, vol. I (Kiev, 
1911) [in Russian]. 


WORKS RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE 


F. BarTHOLD, Geschichte der deutschen Seemacht (2 vols., Magde- 
burg, 1850-1). 

A. Beer, Allgemeine Geschichte des Welthandels, vol. I (5 vols., 
Vienna, 1850-4). 

M, CANALE, Nuova Istoria di Genova, del suo commercio, etc. (1866). 

CapMANY, Memorias Historicas sobre Commercio y Artes de Barcelona 
(4 vols., 1779-92). 

H. Cons, Précis d’histoire du commerce, tome I (Paris, 1896). 

L. DELISLE, Les opérations financiéres des Templiers (1889). 

Cu. DIEHL, Venise (Paris, 1915). 


J. FALKE, Geschichte des deutschen Handels (2 vols., Leipzig, 
1859-60). 


. Heyp, Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen age, trad. 
Furcy Raynaud (2 vols., 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1928). 


P. Huve.in, Essai historique sur le droit des foires et marchés (1897). 
L. Levi, History of British Commerce (1880). 
S. Peruzzi, Storia del Commercio e dei Banchieri di Firenze (1868). 


H. PIGEONNEAU, Histoire du commerce de la France, tome I (Paris, | 
1885). 


A. ScuauBE, Handelsgeschichte der romanischen Vélker des Mittel- 
meergebietes (1906). 


W. Suaw, History of Currency (1896). 


E. VAN BruySssEL, Histoire du commerce et de la marine en Belgique j 
(2 vols., Brussels, 1881-5). 


H. VAN DER LINDEN, Les Gildes marchandes dans les Pays Bas au 
moyen age (1896). 


3840 


gy 
- 
2 See 7 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


oe RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRY 
AND THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES 


W. ASHLEY, Introduction to English Economic History, 2 parts 
(1893-1906). 
M. BoraRuLL, Coleccion de documentos, etc., de la Corona de Aragon, 
vol. XL, Gremios y Cofradias, etc. (1876). 
W. CunnincHaM, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, vol. I. 
A. Doren, Studien aus der Florentiner Wirtschaftgeschichte (1908). 
, Entwickelung und Organisation der Florentiner Zunfte 
(1896). 
R. EBERSTADT, Das franzdsische Gewerberecht, etc. (Leipzig, 1899). 
, Der Ursprung des Zunftwesens (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1915). 
G. Espinas ET H. PIReEnnE, Recueil de documents relatifs a l’ histoire 
de l’industrie drapiére en Flandre (tomes I-II, Brussels, 1906-20). 
G. FaGniEz, Documents relatifs a l’histoire de Vindustrie et du com- 
merce en France (2 vols., Paris, 1898-1901). 
, L’industrie et la classe industrielle a Paris au XIII® siécle 
(1877). 
L. GAmBIRASIO, Le corporazioni milanesi nel medio evo (1897). 
T. Geerinc, Handel und Industrie der Stadt Basel (1886). 
Goaioso, Il contratto di lavoro Ligure (1899). 
Huysrecut, Histoire du commerce et de l’industrie en Belgique 
(Bruges, 1888). 
J. HuytrTens, Recherches sur les Corporations Gantoises (1861). 
E. Levasseur, Histoire des classes ouvriéres et de lVindustrie en 
France avant 1789, tome I (Paris, 1900). 
G. pES Marez, L’organisation du travail 4 Bruxelles au XV° siécle 
(1904). 
MICHELE, Le corporazioni Parmesi (1897). 
J. MuNDELLO, Beitrige zur Geschichte der Arbeitslohn im Mittelalter 
(Budapest, 1903). 
W. OcHENKOWSKI, Englands wirtschaftliche Entwickelung 1m Aus- 
gange des Mittelalters (Jena, 1879). 
O. PererKka, Das Gewerberecht Béhmens im XIV Jahrhundert 
(Vienna, 1909). 
G. Renarp, Histoire du travail a Florence (2 vols., Paris, 1913). 
, Syndicats, trade unions, et corporations (Paris, 1900). 
E. Ropocanaccui, Les corporations ouvriéres &@ Rome (2 vols., Paris, 
1896). 
G. Martin Saint-Lton, Histoire des corporations de métiers en 
France (8rd ed., 1922). 
J. Sartuou, Las asociaciones obreras en Espana (1900). 
G. ScHANZ, Zur Geschichte der deutschen Gesellenverbinde (Leipzig, 


1877). 
341 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


G. SCHMOLLER, Die Strassburger Tucher- und Weberzunft (1879). 

STRICKER, Studien zur Genesis des moderne Kapitalismus (1908-19). 

L. TrRAMOYERES BLAsco, Institutiones gremiales en Valencia, etc. 
(1889). 

J. VENTALLO VintrRO, Historia de la industria lanera catalana (1904). 


WORKS RELATING TO URBAN EMANCIPATION 
AND THE SOCIAL ROLE OF THE COMMERCIAL AND 
INDUSTRIAL CLASSES 


. Arias, Il Sistema della costituzione economica e sociale italiane 
nell’ eta (1905). 

. Bourcin, La commune de Soissons (1908). 

CARRERAS Y CANDI, Hegemonia de Barcelona-en Cataluna (1898). 


. Doren, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Kaufmannsgilden des 
Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1890). 

. Espinas, La vie urbaine de Douai au moyen age (4 vols., 1912). 

. Giry, Histoire de la ville de Saint-Omer (1877). 

—_———, Les Etablissements de Rouen (2 vols., 1883-5). 


2 


GONZALEZ, Coleccion de fueros concedidos & varios pueblos (2 vols., 
1833). 


A. S. GreEN, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols., 1894). 
C. Gross, The Gild Merchant (1890). 

L. HALPHEN, Paris sous les premiers Capétiens (1909). 

K. HEGEL, Die Entstehung des deutschen Stidtewesens (1898). 


, Stidte und Gilden der Germanischen Vélker im Mittel- 

alter (2 vols., Leipzig, 1891-2). 

K. LAMPRECHT, Deutsches Stidteleben am Schluss des Mittelalters 
(Leipzig, 1884). 

A. Lucnarre, Les Communes francaises (2nd ed., 1911). 

J. Lucuatrge, Les Démocraties italiennes (1915). 

E. Mauais, Histoire de la commune d’Amiens (1906). 

L 

F 

H 


ee Oia ae 


. Minot, Les Insurrections urbaines au début du régne de Charles VI 
(1900). ‘ 
. PERRENS, Etienne Marcel, etc. (1875). 
. PIRENNE, Les démocraties urbaines aux Pays-Bas (1912). 
, Histoire de Dinant (1896). 
A. Sotm1, Le classe soziali in Firenze (1900). 
L. VANDERKINDERE, Le siécle des Artevelde (1879). 


342 


INDEX 


ABBEYS, organisation of, 129-30 
Abo, 275 
Achaia, 267 
Ackerman, 811 
** Acquisitions,”’ 81 
Acre, 168 
Adalbero, Bishop, quoted, 119, 
146 
Admiralty courts, 174, 288-89 
Adrian IV, Pope, 155 
Adrianople, 55, 266 
Adriatic, Venetian conquest of, 175 
Adscriptitii, 43, 44 
Africa, trade with, 111, 289; 
Italian banking agency in, 
168; European exploration 
of, 289 
Agreements, 247-48 (and 
Charters) 
Agriculture : 
Bulgarian prosperity in, 59 
Byzantine care of, 32-35, 116 
Churches’ services to, 36, 65, 
68-69, 157 
communes, agricultural, in 
Byzantine Empire, 41 
co-operative farming, 323 


see 


corn-growing. Seethathead- | 


ing 
day labourers. See 
heading, Wage-earners 
decay of, under barbarians, 
26; 14th cent. decline, 316 
development of (10th to 13th 
cents.), 231 seq., 236-38 
Hastern Europe, preponder- 
ance in, 270 
encouragement of,, under 
Carolingian and _  Anglo- 
Saxon monarchies, 64 
England pre-eminent in, 176 
‘extensive’? methods, 10, 
234, 255, 274 
feudal system, as affecting, 
140-41, 152, 159 
German, 12 
Gewaanne, 10 
industrial crops. 
heading 


sub- 


See that 


Agriculture (continued) : 


industry an annexe of, 102 
intensive methods introduced, 
234 
iron ploughshare introduced, 
234, 274 
live stock, small, preponder- 
ance of, 141, 282-33 
manures, 234, 274 
métayage. See that heading 
methods of, Carolingian, 74, 
75, '79 
model farms, 153, 157, 232; 
Scandinavian, 274 
ploughlands, division of, 79; 
cessation of, 240 
Scandinavia, in, 273 
servants in husbandry (ser- 
vientes, valets), 257-58 
Slav, 7 
soldier cultivators, 41 
State promotion of, 153 
strips of field, 10, 79, 141 
tenant-farming (7th to 10th 
cents.), 90; nature of, 255; 
success of, 259; (15th cent.), 
322-23; development of, 335 
towns’ concern with, 201 
trade development stimulat- 
ing, 177 
triennial fallows, 10, 255, 274 
wage-earners in, elimination 
of, in Byzantine Empire, 42; 
survivors in Gaul, 90; 
beginnings of, 252, 255; 
day labourers, 255-57, 276; 
earnings of (13th cent.), 
259; classes of, 324 
Ahrimanns, 88, 91, 114, 122 
** Aids,”’ 249 
Aix-la-Chapelle, 118; mineral 
springs of, 106; fair at, 170; 
coal mining in, 295; risings 
at (14th cent.), 312 
Alamanni, 9; influence — of, 18; 
savagery of, 23; spoliation 
by, 24 
Alamannia, colonisation of, 68, 
70; royal domains in, 82 


343 


INDEX 


Aland Is., Swedish colonisation of, 
274 
Alans, 16, 27 
Alaric, 15, 22 
Alava, 122 
Albanians, 57 
Albergue. See Hospitality 
Albigeois, 246 
Aldermen, 199 
Aldions, 92, 186 
Alfred the Great, 63, 67 
Alleutiers, 122 
Allmends, 120 
Allod, 81 
Allodiales, 87 
Allodiarii, 91 
Almaden, 184 
Almeria, 188 
Almonds, 235 
Alms-houses, 638, 156 
Alphonso VII of Spain, 152 
Alsace: 
colonge of, 129 
coloni in, feudal, 182 
forest clearances in, 229-30 
mining in, 184; of silver, 294 
peasant rights in, 134 
Roman framework preserved 
in, 18 
villeins’ holdings in, 141 
wage rates in (15th cent.), 308 
Amalfi, 53, 55, 192 
Amandus, 70 
Amber, 110 
Amiens: 
artisans’ corporations in, 211 
democratic gains at, 217 
fair at, 170 
industrial development of, 192 
industries of: woollen cloth, 
183, 187; tapestries, 188; 
weaving, 292 


insurrections in (1118 and 
1177), 195 

merchants’ revolt at (1030), 
194 

revolutionary temper (14th 
cent.), 314 


mentioned, 315, 327 

Amsterdam, 290, 291 

Ancona, 57 

Andalusia, 186, 229 

Angles, 9, 11; Britons conquered 
by, 16, 21; savagery of, 23 

Anglo-Saxons: spoliation by, 24; 
conversion of, 65; village 
communities, 79; peasant 
life among, 98; continental 


trade ignored by, 111; 
Scandinavia civilised by, 
273 
Angoumois, 235 
Aniane Abbey, 70 
Animals, wild, 73; farm, 74, 141, 
232-33 
Aniseed, 236 
Anison Abbey, 70 
Anjou, 91, 152 
Annaburg, 294 
Antrustions, 84 
Antwerp: English trade with, 163, 
295 ; Italian counting houses 
at, 289; commercial pros- 
perity of, 290; printing at, 
297-98 
Apothecaries, 
of, 212 
Appeal, right of, 250 
Apple exports, 2385 ; 
Apprentices, 181, 213, 221, 222,304 
Apprenticeship, conditions of, 212- 
13, 324 
Apricots, 235 
Apulia, 235 
Aquileia, battle of, 15 
Aquitaine: Visigoths established 
in, 15; barbarian atrocities 
in, 23, 25; monastic colo- 
nies in, 69; wasteland in, 
72; dye-plants, etc., of, 76, 
236; royal domains of, 86; 
free properties in, 89, 122; 
peasant life in, 145; public 
order and_ justice estab- 
lished in, 152; forest clear- 
ances in, 230 
Aquitania, 4 
Arabs (see also Moslems): 
civilisation of, influence of,~ 
on the West, 105 
compass borrowed from, 174 
cotton manufacture of, 189 
currency of, paper, 167 
food manufactories of, 186 
hydraulic science of, 229 
linen industry of, 188 
piratical ravages by, 115 
Spain invaded by, 69 
Aragon: 
drapery industry of, 187 
forest clearances in, 2381 
irrigation in, 229 
lords of, 242 
monarchy in (from 11th cent.), 
sound administration or- 
ganised by, 152 


262; corporations 


344 


INDEX 


Aragon (continued): 
oil export and rice cultiva- 
tion of, 235 
pasture farming in, 317 
riots in, 217 
rural emancipation in, 248; 
conditions in 15th cent., 
330 
serfs in, 186, 325; serfs of the 
glebe, 258 
Arboriculture, 34, 75, 274, 318 
Architects, 275 
Architecture: Romanesque, 107; 
monastic instruction in, 
157; stone for, 184-85; 
French supremacy in 
Gothic, 189 
Archons, 265 
Ardennes forest, 73 
Arezzo, 219 
Argonne, 228 
Aristocracy, landed (see also 
Feudal lords): growth of, 
among Germans, 20, 21; 
Byzantine, 38-40 
Aristocracy of high officials, 84 
Aristocracy of service, 84 
Arles, trade of, 111; a ‘“‘ staple” 
town, 164; prosperity of, 
in crusading era, 175; 
cotton industry of, 188; 
industrial development of, 
192; feudal power broken 
at, 195; democratic success 
in (1225), 219; landed pro- 
perty of, 244; peasant 
revolt in, 247 
Armagh, art at, 107 
Armenians, 53 
Armorica, 23, 25, 72, 76 
Armourers, 106, 223 
Arms: 
manufacture of, 49, 185, 295 


right to carry, 122, 1385; 
prohibited, 153 
Arras, 118, 188, 194, 297 
Art: 
craft so-called, 181 
decoration, 50 
industrial: in Byzantine 


Empire, 46; French supre- 
macy in, 189-90; in central 
Europe, 270; Scandinavian, 


275; at close of Middle 
Ages, 295 

schools of crafts and, 108, 
157 


urban emulation in, 203 


Arti, 104. And see Corporations» 
Guilds, and under Florence> 
Corporations 

Artichokes, 235 

Artisans: 

administrative gains of, 217, 
218 

armed risings of, 217 

association rights secured by, 
210 seq. See also sub- 
headings Corporations, Fra- 
ternities, and Free Crafts 

capitalist direction of, 183-84 

civil rights granted to, by 
town communities, 197 

corporations of: (systemata), 
prosperity of, in Eastern 
Empire, 48-48 ; their decay, 
266 ; (collegia opificum), dis- 
appearance of, in the West, 
104; State encouragement 
of (11th to 12th cents.), 153; 
patriciate’s suppression of, 
209; statutes of, 47, 212, 
213, 215; statutes regulated 
by patricians, 209; scope 
of the statutes, 221; abuse 
of, 303; royal decrees 
against monopolies of (14th 
to 15th cents.), 282; value 
and drawbacks of, 3038 

corporations of, sworn: for- 
bidden, 105; development 
of, later than that of 
merchant gilds, 193; for- 
mation of, 210; influence of, 
211, 212, 215; assemblies 
and administrators of, 213- 
14; judicial rights of, 214; 
royal support of, 217; be- 
nefits secured in, 210; 
royal power exercised over, 
282; growth of, 292, 302-3, 
333 

craft privileges of, 214 

discipline among, voluntary, 
224 

exclusion of, from gilds, 206; 
from general assemblies, 
207 

extradition of, reciprocal be- 
tween towns, 209 

fraternities of: nature of, 193, 
210, 218; dissolved by 
Philippe le Bel (1807), 
217 

free, survival of the class of, 
104-5, 116 


345 


INDEX 


Artisans (continued): 
free crafts of: Byzantine en- 
couragement of, 47-48; de- 
velopment of, later than 
that of merchant gilds, 
193; nature of, 210; trans- 
formation of, into sworn 
corporations, 211; influence 
of, 212, 215; assemblies and 
administrators of, 213-14; 
judicial rights of, 214; 
chapels and banners of, 
214; benefits secured in, 
220; royal power exercised 
over, 282; growth of, 292 
Italian, political power seized 
by, 219 
journeymen, 181; security of, 
220; earnings of, 221; mas- 
ter craftsmen’s antagonism 
to, 304, 334 
land acquisitions by, 320 
master craftsmen: equality 
amongst, attempted, 215; 
security of, 220; earnings 
of, 221; encroachments by, 
304; antagonism against 
journeymen, 334 
mastership : qualifications for, 
212-13, 220; later closed, 
304 
material conditions of (11th 
to 14th cents.), 222 
oppression of, by urban patri- 
ciate, 208-10 
rise of the class, 180-82, 190 
servile, 137 
solidarity of, 224 
standard of work of, 215 
status of, in feudal Europe, 
191-92, 224 
training of, 213 
Artists: in Carolingian period, 107; 
industrial achievements of, 
190; craftsmen, 223; pio- 
neering work by, 269-70 
Artois, 230 
Ashes, trade in, 177, 2774 
Asia Minor: Byzantine Empire’s 
loss of, 264; trade with 
(15th cent.), 289 
Assarts, meaning of the term, 
71, 81, 229; appropriation 
rights attaching to, 71, 
80-81, 120; rent from, 121; 
leases of, 1384; peasant ap- 
propriations of, 250, 253, 
275 


_ Assemblies: 


burgesses’, 193 

gilds’, 206 

influence in, secured by 
workers in Italy, 219 

summons to, 88, 91 

town, 114, 199; crippling of, 
by patriciate, 207 

village, under feudalism, 144, 
250 

Associations: 
allodial owners, of, 122 


artisans’. See under that. 
heading 

burgesses’. See Bourgeoisie 
development of, among 


working classes, 210 seq. 
large scale (14th to15th cents.), 
286 
military, in towns, 205 
road and bridge repairs, for, 
157 
rural, 144, 263; Scandinavian, ~ 
276 
Asti, 167, 203; Bishop of, 124 
Asturias, 184 
Athens, 54, 315 
Athos, 37 
Atlantic fisheries, 231 
Atlantic sea route, development 
of, 176 
Atresi, 271 
Attila, 5, 16 
Aubergine, 235 
Auction sales, gild monopoly in, 
208 
Augsburg: 
bishopric of, 82, 92 
capitalists of, 300 
industrial development of, 192 
industries of: woollen, 187; 
fustian, 297; floriculture, 
318 
population of, 315 
prosperity of (15th cent.), 291 
situation of, 113, 176 
State Bank of, 288 
Aumale, 187 
Aunis, 231, 286 
Austrasia, 113 
Austrasians, 28, 25, 27 
Austria: colonisation of (8th cent.), 
68; public order and justice 
established in, 152; forest 
clearances in, 229-30; 
famine in, 284 
Autharis the Lombard, 63 
Autourgoi, 265 


346 


INDEX 


Auvergne: 

barbarian spoliation of (6th 
cent.), 25 

cutlery, manufacture of, 186 
drainage of, 228 
epidemics in, 29 
free properties in, 122 
fruit exports of, 235 
inheritance rights in, 249 
mining in, 184 
precious stones from, 184 
villeinage in, 133 

Avars, 5, 16, 33 

Avignon: 
black death in, 285 
bridge of, 164 
democratic success in (1225), 

219 

feudal power broken at, 195 
palaces in, 205 
vineyards of, 236 

Azores, discovery of, 289 


Bacon, 234 
Bail, 250 
Baillis, 199, 213-14 
Baires, 84 
Baldus cited, 166 
Bale. See Basle 
Balearic Is., 229, 289, 296, 325 
Balkan peninsula: depopulation 
of, (6th cent.), 80; Greek 
missionaries in, 267; no- 
bility in, 271 
Ball, John, 328 
Ballester, Tort, 327-28 
Baltic lands: 
agricultural development of 
(14th to 15th cents.), 316 
Church property in, 243 
crusades as affecting, 160 
Danish settlements in, 274 
German methods of settle- | 
ment in, 268 
trade of, 177 
Baltic Sea: fisheries of, 231; Scan- 
dinavian supremacy in, 275 ; 
canal to, from Elbe, 287 
Bangor, 69 
Banishment for professional faults, 
218 
Bankers: 
corporations of, 46, 212 
debtors of, 169 
fairs of, 172 
foreign, privileges granted to, 
154 


Bankers (continued): 

Italian: characteristics of, 
162-63, 169; Papal protec- 
tion of, 166, 169; pre- 
eminence of, 168; foreign 
settlements of, 269 

Jewish and Christian, contrast 
in lot of, 167 

position of, 52, 169-70 

rise of the class, 167 

Banking: 

development of, by the State, 
154; by the Church, 158 

international, 288 


State and popular banks 
(15th cent.), 288 
urban governments’ organ- 


isation of, 202 
Banquets, burgesses’ associations 
so called, 193 
Bar-sur-Aube, 171 
Barbarians (see also Germans, 
Slavs, etc.): 
anarchy under rule of, 17, 22 
Byzantine civilisation of, 57- 
61 
characteristics of, 5, 30 
invasions by; disastrous re- 
sults of, 1, 5, 17, 18, 30-31, 
115; the last invasions (9th 
and 10th cents.), 88, 115, 
332 
migrations of, the great, 15 
punishments under, 22 
races of, 5 


| Barcelona: 


democratic régime in, 3812 

dockyard at, 174 

fleet of, 289 

iron works of, 185 

population of (14th cent.), 315 

prosperity of, in crusading era, 
175 

public order and 
established in, 152 

State Bank of, 288 

trading activities of (15th 
cent.), 290 

usages of, 173 


justice 


| Bardi, 168 


Bari, 55, 1'70 

Barletta, 163 

Barley, 75, 274 

Barter, 7, 18, 28, 74, 108, 110, 159 
Basil I., the Macedonian, 33 
Basil; KEunuch, 39 

Basilicata, 236 

Basin, Bishop Thomas, cited, 316 


347 


INDEX 


Basle, 118, 315; woollen industry 
of, 187, 210, 285; demo- 
cratic risings in, 217; silk 
industry of, 297; upper and 
middle classes in, 299, 301; 
crafts in (15th cent.), 302; 
Safran at, 303 

Basque provinces, 122, 248 

Bastides, 191 

Baths, 222-28, 262 

Baumgartner family, 300 

Bavaria: royal domains in, 82; 
non-feudal property sur- 
viving in, 121; hop gardens 
of, 236 

Bavaria, Duke of, 83 

Bavarians, 9; influence of, 18 

Bayonne, 176 

Béarn, 122, 194 

Beaucaire, 170 

Beaumanolr cited, 245 

Beaumont, charter of, 196, 247 

Beauvais, cloth industry of, 187; 
revolt at (1074-79), 194; 
riots in (12338), 217; corvée 
in, 249 

Bee-keeping, 74, 233 

Beer, 222, 261; German, 12, 100; 
English and Flemish pro- 
duction of, 186 

Beggars: at Rome (410), 28; laws 
against, 101; corporations 
of, 303; increase in, 306-7; 
rural pauperism, 325 

Belgium (see also Low Countries) : 

Frankish occupation of, 16 
land reclamation in, 228; 

forest clearance, 230 
villeinage in, 1338 

Bell foundries, 295 

Benedict of Aniane, 69 

Benedict of Nursia, 68 

Benedictines, 69, 154 

Beneficia. See Precaria 

Benevento, Duchy of, 18 

Benjamin of Tudela quoted, 266 

Berbers, 115 

Bergamo, 184, 211 

Bergen, 275, 291-92 

Bernard of Clairvaux, 194 

Berry, 184 

Besancon, 303 

Bezants, 51, 165 

Bézier, 187, 195, 314 

Bigorré, 122 

Bills of Exchange, 52, 288 

Birth rate, low (7th to 10th cents.), 
76 


Biscay: sea traffic to, 176; iron- 
mining in, 184, 185, 294 
Bishoprics, towns identified with, 
112 
Black death, ravages of, 284-85; 
labour shortage after, 285, 
317, 324 
Black Sea trade, 289 
Blast furnaces, 298, 295 
Blind men, corporations of, 303 
Bobbio Abbey, 69, 74, 87, 92, 93, 
96, 107 
Bohemia: 
Church lands in, 270-71 
civilising of, 267-68 
crusades as affecting, 160 
democracy in, decline in, 312 
Hussite wars, 329, 331 
luxury industries of, 282 
mines of: tin, 184, 269, 295; 
gold and silver, 294 
peasant protection in, 281 
poverty of (14th cent. , 316 


rural conditions in (15th — 
cent.), 380; rural industries, 
293 


serfdom in (138th cent.), 271 
Slav occupation of, 6 
Bologna: 
artisans’ corporations in, 211 
Bishopric of, 83, 124 
black death in, 285 
cloth industry of, 186 
democratic success in (1257- 
71), 219 
feudal power at, broken, 194 
marshes of, drained, 229 
merchant bankers of, 167 
palaces in, 205 
restoration of (9th cent. ), 118 
revolutionary temper in (14th 
cent.), 310 
Boon payments, 92 
Bordars, 92, 186 
Bordeaux: 
administration of, 199 
fair at, 170 
free craft régime in, 302 
importance of, 315 
revival of (12th cent.), 176 
trade of, 111 
wine exports of (14th cent.), 
236 
Bosnia, 57, 269 
Bosphorus, Venetian mastery of, 
175 
Bottomry, loans on, 52, 166 
Boulogne, 111 


{ 


348 


INDEX 


Boulonnais, 2338 
Bourgeoisie, burgesses, 
class (urban): 
administrative abilities 
203 
associations of: formation of, 
193, 196; nature of, 197, 
199 - 200; legal organisa- 
tions, 197, 205, 206; oli- 
garchical, 206; fraternities, 
193, 206 
Byzantine Empire, in, 55, 266; 
imperial policy regarding, 
38, 61, 116 
capitalist, rise of, 334 
central European, 270 
colonisation supported by, 
227 
feudatories at strife with, 241 
landed property acquired by, 
244, 320; its value, 198 
name, origin of, 193 
nobles and gentry allied with, 
206 
peasant emancipation pro- 
moted by, 246 
pomp of, 209 
rise of the class, 193 
social struggles’ effect on, 279 
status of, 224; in 15th cent., 
301-2 
Bourgeoisie, middle class (rural) : 
Byzantine policy regard- 
ing, 38, 41-42, 61, 116; 
struggle of, against large 
proprietors in the West, 
88-89; position of (12th 
to 14th cents.), 252-53 
Bourges, 187, 214 
Bozadores, 88 
Brabant: 
cloth industry of, 187; tapes- 
tries, 297 
forest clearances in, 229 
free properties in, 123 
knightly class, decline of, 
24.2 
poorters of, 183 
population increase in (15th 
cent.), 33 
stone quarries of, 185 
trade of (14th and 15th cents.), 
290, 296 
trading associations of, 163 
urbanisation of (14th cent.), 
315 
Brandenburg, Marches of: public 
order and justice established 


middle 


of, 


in, 152; great domains of, 
228; serfdom in (14th cent.), 
325; peasant risings in, 
(15th cent.), 329 
Brass, 185-86; brass wire, 295 
Bray, 186 
Bréme country, 228 
Bremen, 1138, 291 
Brescia, 105, 219 
Breslau: fair at, 269; founding of, 
270; black death in, 285; 
prosperity of, 291, 315 
Breteuil, charter of, 196, 247 
Breton littoral, drainage of, 228 
Bridges, 52, 208, 284; the Fréres 
Pontifs, 157, 164 
Brie, 327 
Brigandage, 8, 28, 57, 65, 110; 
feudal, 146, 151, 279; state 
war on, 164; diminution of, 
260 
Bristol, 290 
Britain (see also England): pros- 
perity of, under Roman 
Empire, 4; the Heptarchy, 
16; Anglo-Saxon spoliation 
in, 19, 27; epidemics in, 
29 
Brittany: 
forest clearances in, 230 
free properties in, 122 
lead mines of, 294 
peasant rising in, 148 
sail-cloth industry of, 297 
salt industry of, 294 
serfdom persisting in, 258 
trade of, 296 
Broceliande, 72 
Bronze work, 49-50, 107, 295 
Brotherhoods. See Fraternities 
Bruges: English trade with, 163 ; 
Italian bankersand counting 
houses in, 168, 289; fair at, 
170, 287; Venetian galley 
service to, 176; cloth 
industry of, 187; industrial 
development of, 192; popu- 
lation of, 203; in 14th cent., 
315; bourgeoisie of, 209; 
democratic rising in, 218; 
bourse of, 287; commercial 
importance of, 290; revo- 
lutionary temper at (14th 
cent.), 3810, 3812; (15th 
cent.), 314 
‘* Bruges, Matins of,”’ 218 
Brunehaut, 62 
Brunetto Latini quoted, 209 


349 


INDEX 


Brunswick, 291, 312 
Brussels, 297 
Buckwheat, 235 | 
Buda Pesth, 269, 270 
Bugey, 133 
Builders’ wage rates, 308 
Building art, 297 
Bulgaria, corn-growing in, 268; 
serfdom in, 271; rural 
misery in, 326 
Bulgarians, 33, 52 
Bulgars, 5; ravages by (5th to 7th 
cents.), 16; Hellenisation 
of, 18; Slavised by Byzan- 
tium, 58-59; Byzantine and 
Western influence among, 
267 
Burgesses. See Bourgeoisie 
Burgs, 45, 121, 191 
Burgundians, 9; invasion by (406), 
15; settlements of, in 
Palatinate and Savoy (5th 
cent.), 15; spoliation by, 
19; conversion of, 65; as 
armourers, 106 
Burgundy: ' 
colonisation of, 70 
forest clearances in, 230 
industrial crops of, 236 
land appreciation in, 318 
linen industry of, 188 
salt industry of, 105 
kingdom of (434-531), 16, 18 
stone quarries of, 185 
vine growing in (14th cent.), 
235-36 
wine trade of, 75 
Burgundy, Dukes of, policy of, 
280, 281, 283, 314; revenue 
of, 319 
Butter, 163, 234 
Byzantine Empire: 
achievements of, 115-16, 332 
advantageous position of, 32 


agriculture fostered by, 32-35, 


116 
artistic influence of, 107 
barbarians, successes against 
(5th-7th cents.), 16; Helleni- 
sation of barbarians, 18, 
33-34, 57 
Book of the Prefect, 46 
Church, relations with, 37 
cities of, 54-55 
coloni in, 42-43 
commercial supremacy of, 50 
currency (paper) in, 167 
decay of, 264 seq. 


| Byzantine Empire (continued): 


economic influence of, 45-46, 
60, 165; hegemony of, pass- 
ing to the West, 236 

famine and plague in, 29 

gold standard of, 51 

industrial supremacy of, 48, 
105, 180; policy regarding 
tradeand industry, 47, 50-51 

Isaurian Emperors of, 55; 
their land policy, 36, 38, 42 

landed estates in, 36 seq. 

Macedonian Emperors’ land 
policy, 36, 38, 42 

manufacturing centres in, 49, 
54 

middle classes in, policy 
regarding, 38, 41-42, 116; 
growth of the class (10th- 
11th cents.), 55 

Nautical Code, 52-53 

Paleologi restoration, 175 

peasant life in, 45 

prosperity of (8th-11th cents.), — 
34-85; elements conducing 
to, 55-56 

revenues of, 56 

Roman unity proclaimed by 
(5th cent.), 16 

rural code of, 35, 38, 44 

slavery discouraged by, 43; 
suppressed, 61, 332 

social influence of, 57 

taxation in, 50-51 

trade regulations in, 50; 
foreign merchants’ position, 
51,52; Venetians’ privileges, 
175 

Western rivalry with, 186, 
188-90 

Byzantium: 

artistic pioneers from, 269-70 

convents of, estates of, 37 

fashion leader, Western rivalry 
as, 188-89 

Genoese position at, 175 

industrial regulations in, 47 

manufacturing supremacy of, 
seized by the West, 186, 
289 

market dues in, value of, 50 

money market at, 52 

population of, 54; classes of, 
56 


prosperity of (12th cent.), 
266 


Renaissance of, 815 
situation of, 50 


350 


INDEX 


Byzantium (continued) : 
trade, an international centre 
for, 53-54 
Varangian attacks on (907 
and 945), 59 


Cabinet-making, 297 

Caboche, 314 

Cade, Jack, 329 

Cadiz, 113 —- 

Caen, 170, 185, 187 

Calabria, 184, 236 

Calais, 163 

Calaisis, 228 

Calamine, 269, 295 

Calatayud, 189 

Cale, Guillaume, 327 

Calmar, 275 

Cambrai, founding of, 113; in- 
dustries of, 187, 297; devel- 
opment of, 192; Merchants 
v. Archbishop at (1057-76), 
194; insurrection at (1127), 
195 

Camere, 103 

Campagna, Roman, 317 

Campania, 235 

Camphor, 53 

Campine, 123 

Canals, 202, 208, 287 

Canary Isles, 289 

Candles, 261 

Canons, 255, 265 

Cantabria, 200 

Cantepie, 327 

Caorsini, 167-68 

Cape Vert, 289 

Capital (see also Property, mov- 
able), association between 
labour and, 96; mercantile, 
162, 177; artisans’ posses- 
sion of, 181; land as sole, 
28, 33, 159 

Capitalists (see also Industry, 
great), power of, 168, 299; 
rise of the class, 183-84; 
tyranny of, 220; exploita- 
tion of mines by, 269; 
growth of, 299; evil in- 
fluence of, 300-1 

Capmeister, 213 

Caravans, 193, 269 

Carcassonne, industries of, 187-88; 
feudal power broken at, 
195; democratic success at 
(1226), 219; revolutionary 
temper in (14th cent.), 314 

Cardona, 105. 


Carelia, 274 
Carinthia, arms manufacture in, 
185; earthquake in, 284; 
gold mining in, 294; serf- 
dom in (14th cent.), 325; 
peasant risings in (15th 
cent.), 329 
Carniola, 3825 
Carolingian Emperors, domains of, 
82 
Carolingian period: middle classes 
in, 88; luxury during, 106 
Carpathians, gold mining in, 294 
Carpets, 46, 49, 58, 54, 111, 172, 
188 
Carthagena, 113, 188, 227 
Carthusians, 230, 2438 
Casimir the Great, 330 
Caspian Sea, 175 
Cassel, battle of, 311 
Castile: 
agriculture 
153 
Church property in, 244, 319 
democracy untried in, 312 
fairs of, 170 
feudal estates in, 125-26 
forest clearances in, 231 
freemen in, 122, 133 
irrigation in, 229 
kings of (from 11th cent.), 
sound administrationorgan- 
ised by, 152 
lords of, 242 
oil exports from, 235 
pasture-farming in, 317 
patriciate in, 206 
peasant revolt in, 247 
population increase in (15th 
cent.), 331 
riots in, 217 
rural emancipation in, 248 
serfs in (solariegos), 1386 
wheat exported from, 235 
Castles, 129, 244 
Castra, 104, 112 
Catalogue of Barons cited, 127 
Catalans, navy of (13th cent.), 174 
Catalonia: 
Byzantine trade secured by, 
266 
colonised from Gaul, 68 
forest clearances in, 231 
Honrats of, 206 
industries of, 186-88, 296, 297 
irrigation in, 229 
métayage in, 256 
oil exported from, 235 


encouraged in, 


351 


INDEX 


Catalonia (continued): 
peasant risings in (14th-15th 
cents.), 327 
population increase in (15th 
cent.), 331 
riots in, 217 
rural emancipation in, 248 
serfs in, 136; serfs of the 
glebe, 258; persistence of 
serfdom, 325 
servants’ wages in, 260 
stock leases in, 256 
tenant-farming in (13th cent.), 
255 
trade rivalry of, 175-76 
Cattle: co-ownership of, 78; trade 
in, 162, 172; murrain 
among, 232; scarcity of, 
compared with sheep, 233; 
fattening of, 317 
Cattle-breeding, in the Roman 
Empire,4; among the Slavs, 
7; among the Germans, 
12; barbarian ignorance of, 
26; Byzantine success in, 
34-35; prevalence of, 73, 74, 
266; in Spain, 153, 281; 
scientific methods of, 1538, 
157; development of (13th 
cent.), 232; in Scandinavia, 
273-74; royal encourage- 
ment of, 281 
Caux, 228 
Cecaumenus cited, 40 
Celtic Church, lands of, 79 
Celtic countries, cattle farmers in, 
90; peasant life in, 98; 
towns non-existent in, 112 
conversion of, 65; food of, 
99; communal lands of, 
78-79, 240; Anglo-Norman 
enslavement of, 258 
Cens. See under Leases 
Censitaires, 253, 255, 321-22, 324, 
335 
Ceorls, 87 
Cerdagne, 229, 231 
Cereals, cultivation of, 141, 266; in- 
crease in, 75, 234; rent levy 
on, 255; royal promotion 
of (14th-15th cents.), 281 
Ch4lons, 187, 314 
Chalon-sur-Sadne, 170 
Champagne: 
cutlery manufacture of, 186 
drainage of, 228 
fairs of, 163, 168, 170-72 
forest clearances in, 230 


Celts: 


Champagne (continued): 
industries of, 187, 188, 297 
iron-mining in, 184 
peasant rising in, 327 
serfs enfranchised in, 246; 
persistence of serfdom, 258, 
325 
tenant farming in (15th cent.), 
323 
Champart, 133-34, 140, 249 
Charities, burgesses’ associations 
so called, 1938 
Charity, Church organisation of, 
65, 156; urban provision of, 
2038, 208 
Charlemagne, Emperor, 106; re- 
constructive achievements 
of, 63, 67, 111; forestry 
inculcated by, 73; Church 
grants of, 82; De Villis 
cited, 86, 108; manner of 
life of, 87 
Charles the Fat, 109 


_Charles IV, King of France, 169, ~ 


243, 281 

Charles V, King of France, 280, 
281, 283 

Charles VII, King of France, 330 

Charles VIII, King of France, 
290 

Charroux Abbey, 70 

Charters of enfranchisement, 101, 
196; cited, 245; purchases 
of, 246; rural, 134, 247-48, 
250, 253, 259 

Chartres: cloth industry of, 187; 
serfdom surviving in, 198; 
growth of artisans’ asso- 


ciations in (11th-12th 
cents.), 210; craft chapel 
at, 214 


Chase, rights of the, 73 

Chatellerandais, 186 

Cheese, 261; trade in, 168, 234; 
rent levy on, 256 

Chemical manufactures, 297 

Chestnuts, 87, 235 

Chevage, 139 

Chiaravalle Abbey, 157 

Chiari, 167 

Chinchilla, 188 

Chio, 175 

Chivalry, 150, 155 

Chorites, 265 

Christianity, influence of, in 
Roman Empire, 2, 38; 
among Slavs, 8; slavery 
opposed by, 48, 271, 276 


352 


INDEX 


Church, Eastern: 

benefices, etc., in, 36 

civilising influence of, 57, 59-60 

imperial relations with, 37 

lands of, 36-37, 265, 270-71 

slavery opposed by, 43 

taxation not levied on, 265 

Church, Latin: 

ability in, 156 

agriculture encouraged by, 157 

civilising achievements of, 64- 
66, 116 

colonisation promoted by. 
See under Colonisation 

demoralisation of, 279 

economic influence of, 156 

educational work of, 156 

emancipation of peasants and 
artisans opposed by, 157, 
246 

emancipation of slaves en- 
couraged by, 95, 271, 276 

excommunication, 156 

feudal abuses checked by, 
154-55 


Frankish Empire supported | 


by (486-521), 16 
Fraternities of Peace, 155-56 
ideal of, 155 
industry and commerce en- 

couraged by, 157-58; 

attitude to industrial com- 

binations, 306 


insurrections against, in Spain © 


(12th cent.), 195 

lands of: monastic organisa- 
tion of, 37, 65, 85-86, 103; 
peasants’ privileges on, 45, 
98, 135, 187, 156-57; devel- 
opment of, 65, 246 ; methods 
of acquiring, 82, 123, 248, 


Church, Latin (continued): 
political economy developed 
by, 156 
Pontiff Brothers, the, 164 
popular alliance with, against 
nobles, 218 
royal policy regarding, 280 
transport promoted by, 157, 
163-64 
truce of God spread by, 155 
usury condemned by, 158, 166 
Church buildings, 224 
Cider, 100, 285, 261 
Cilicia, 175 
Cistercians, 154; cloth industry 
carried by, into Germany, 
188; colonisation effected 
by, 227, 228; land reclam- 
ation by, 230; status of, 
248; Scandinavia civilised 


by, 274 

Cities. See Towns 

Civil liberty, spread of, in 12th 
cent., 196-98 


Clergy (see also Church): 
burgess rights denied to, 197 
luxury and idleness of, in 
Eastern Church, 36 
peasant members of, 252 
serfs barred from ranks of, 
138 
townships’ and _ peasants’ 
struggle against, 246-47 
trade encouraged by, 109 
villeins among, 143 
Clerks, 183 
Clermont-sur-Oise, battle of, 327 
Clockmaking, 186, 295 


Cloth manufacture, Frisian, 1063 


270; extent of, in 9th cent., | 


82; in feudal times, 124, 


for art on, 103, 157; dif- 
fusion of, 128; reclamation 
movement as affecting, 240; 
tenant farming on, 255; 
in Scandinavia, 2775 
Lateran Council, 155 
Mendicant Orders, 156 
monarchical government’s re- 
establishment assisted by, 
154 
Monastic Orders as colonists, 
230-31; agricultural science 
of, 234; market gardening 
and horticulture by, 235 


353 


development in the West, 
186-88; cloth dressing, 293. 
See also Woollen industry 


Cloth trade, 186-87, 208; in fine 
243, 271; later, 319; schools | 


cloths, 282 

Clothes, coarseness of, 106; of 
villeins, 145 ; of the working 
class (llth to 14th cents.), 
222; prices of (14th cent.), 
161; improvements in (15th 
cent.), 331 


Clovis, 62 


Cluniacs, 227, 243 
Coal-mining, 185, 295 
Coblenz, 210 

Cod, 317 


| Ceeur, Jacques, 290, 299, 320 


Coinage (see also Money changers, 
Money economy) 
2A 


INDEX 


Coinage (continued) : 

debasing of, 283 

diversity of, 159 

general use of (15th cent.), 287 

German ignorance of, 12 

gold and silver (12th cent.), 
165 

gold or silver sou, 109-10 

international: Byzantine, 51, 
165; Italian, 288 

metal, in central Europe (13th 
cent.), 268 

re-establishment of, 
Carolingians, etc., 64 

royal policy regarding (14th 
to 15th cents.), 109, 283 

Royal v. Feudal, 154 

scarcity of, under feudalism, 


under 


159 
silver, in Scandinavia (11th 
cent.), 274 


stabilisation of, 165, 202, 250; 
encouraged by the Church, 
158 
Collegia, 3, 104 
Colliberti, 136, 187 
Cologne, 113; river trade of, 164, 
290-91; woollen industry in, 
187; merchant aristocracy 
of, 192;insurrection in (12th 
cent.), 195; burgesses of, 
209; artisans’ corporations 
in, 211; democratic risings 
in, 217, 312; prosperity of 
fair in (15th cent.), 287; 
golden age of, 315 
Cologne, Archbishop of, 169, 194, 
243 
Colonate. 
Coloni : 
barbarian appropriation of, 
19 
barbarian immigrants as, 15 
Carolingian protection of, 64 
classes of, 44 
elements composing the class 
of, 43; variety established 
in Byzantine Empire, 33 
growth of the class under the 
Germans, 21 
preponderance of, in France, 
91, 182 
produce rent paid by, 90 
rural population of, in Byzan- 
tine Empire, 42 
seigniorial domains, on, 86 
settlements of (7th and 8th 
cents.), 67 


See Coloni 


Colont (continued): 
Slav employment of, 7; Slav 
intermingling with, 57 
status and conditions of, 271; 
in Roman Europe, 8; in 
Byzantine Empire, 43-44; 
(7th to 10th cents.), 92-938; 
degradation of, to serf class, 
21, 44, 59, 98, 117, 186 
war prisoners as, 14, 43 
Colonisation, agricultural : 
barbarian kings’ encourage- 
ment of, 63 
Byzantine Empire, in, 332 
Central Europe, of, 267-68 
Church’s encouragement of, 
65, 68-69, 226-27, 243, 246 
far-reaching effects of, 67 
first attempt at, 116 
Hostise: meaning of, 134; 
special advantages accru- 
ing to, 91, 247 
importance of, 334 
military aid in, 33, 68 
privileges attaching to, 90, 91 
progress in (llth to 12th 
cents.), 225 
Roman Empire, under, 4 
Scandinavian, 273 
State promotion of, 1538, 280 
trade development stimulat- 
ing, 177 
urban communities’ encour- 
agement of, 201 
Columban, 68, 70 
Commachio, 104, 105, 294 


Commerce. See Trade 
Commons. See under Lands 
Communes (merchants’ federa- 


tions), rise of, 194; land 
purchases by, 320 

Communism: Mendicant Orders 
and, 156; Taborite, 329 

Communistic régime on monastic 
domains, 85-86 

Community of labour, 74-75, 79 

Community of property, surviva- 
of, to 15th cent., 121 

Comneni, 264 

Compass, use of, 174, 289 

Compiegne, 195, 314 

Complants. See under Leases 

Compostella, 195 

Condoma, 100 

Confectioneries, 297 

Confirmationes (merchants’ fedel 
rations), 194 

Confratriew, 105 


354 


INDEX 


° 


Confréries. 
rations 

Congo, discovery of, 289 

Conink, 218 

Conserteriaw, 105 

Consortaria, 100 

Constance, 176, 315; the fair, 170 

Constantinople. See Byzantium 

Consuls (medizval), merchants’, 
171; sea, 173; patricians’, 
206; artisans’, 213-14 

Consumers’ interests, 202, 215 

Contracts, stipulations of, more 
theoretical than actual, 92, 
135. And see Charters and 
Leases 

Copenhagen, 275 

Copper mines, 49, 269, 275, 295 

Copper trade and industry, 176, 
1838, 296 

Copyists, 189, 297 

Coral fishing, 231 

Corbie Abbey, 70, 103-5, 247; 
fair at, 170; merchants’ 
revolt at, 194 

Cordova, leather industry of, 172, 
189; riots in, 217 

Corfu, 54 

Corinth, 49, 54 

Cork-oaks, 232 

Corn-growing: in Roman lands, 
4; in Celtic and Germanic 
lands, 75; in central 
Europe, 268; in Scandi- 
navia, 274; development of 
(14th to 15th cents.), 318; 
wheat production, 235 

Corn trade, 162, 168, 172, 176 

Cornwall, lead and tin mines of, 
184, 294-95 

Corporations, industrial and pro- 
fessional: in Eastern Em- 
pire, 46-48; in the West, 
803. See also under Arti- 
sans and Gilds 

Corregidors, 199 

Corsica, 175 

Corvée (labour services): of free- 
men, 92; of coloni, 93; 
commuted, for women, 97; 


burden of, 189; town- 
dwellers free from, 198; 
abolition of, 249; royal 
power controlling, 281; 
mentioned, 45, 180, 256-57, 
265, 271 


Corvey Monastery, 70 
Cotentin, 228, 327 


See Artisans, corpo- | 
Cotton cultivation, 35, 236; trade 


Cotters, 92, 136 


in cotton, 800 

Cotton fabrics, 111, 168, 172, 188; 
paper from, 189-90 

Courier services, 269 

Couriers of payment, 172 

Courtesans, corporations of, 303 

** Courtesies,’’ 259 

Courtrai, democratic victory at 
(1302), 218 

Courts: Admiralty, 174, 288-89; 
gild, 207 

Cracow, 269, 285 

Craft, exercise of, the condition of 
political power, 219 

Craft industry, 181-82; its banners, 


214, 224. See also In- 
dustry 
Craft schools, 108, 157 
Craftsmen. See Artisans 


Credit: 
advances system, 220 
Byzantine credit notes, 52 
development of, under Roman 
Empire, 4; organisation of, 
in Carolingian period, 109; 
by the State, 154; by the 
Church, 158; by rising 
merchant class, 162, 165- 
66; by Florentines, 168; 
by Jews, 268 
forms of (15th cent.), 288 
hampered by legislation, 51 
imperfection of instruments 
of, 159 
letters of, 167 
operations of, conducted at 
fairs, 172 
rates of, 51, 274, 287 
royal policy regarding (14th 
to 15th cents.), 283 
Cremona: a “ staple”’ town, 164; 
merchant bankers of, 167; 
feudal power broken at 
(1095), 194; marshes o: 
drained, 229 
Croatia, Croats, 58, 267, 271 
Cross, village, 248 
Crowland Abbey, 70 
Crusades, 160-61, 175 
Cuenca, tapestries of, 188 
Cummin, 236 
Currency, fiduciary, 167. See also 
Coinage and Money eco- 
nomy 
Curtis, 85, 112, 129 
‘** Customs.’”’ See Charters 


355 


INDEX 


** Customs, evil,’’ 249 

Customs regulations, Government 
fiscal policy as to, 154, 287 

Cutlery, 186 

Cymrys, 87 

Cyprus, 168, 175, 236 

Czech mineral and thermal springs, 
295; glass works, 297 

Czechs, 267, 329 


Dacia: Gothic settlements in (4th 
cent.), 15; towns destroyed 
in, 27; Byzantine civilisa- 
tion in, 57 

Dagobert, 63 

Dairy produce, Scandinavian, 274 

Dalecarlia, 273, 275 

Dalmatia: prosperity of, under 
Roman Empire, 4; pirates 
from, 53; Byzantine in- 
fluence in, 57 

Danielis, 39 

Dantzig: ploughlands of, 228; 
trading activity of, 269, 
270, 291 

Danube lands, German settlements 
in, 18; democratic risings 
in, 217; Vlach colonisation 
of, 268; population of (13th 
cent.), 268; wage values in 
(15th cent.), 330 

Danube towns: barbarian des- 
truction of, 26; prosperity 
of (15th cent.), 291 

Dardanelles, 175 

Darnétal, 18'7 

Dauphiné: 

arms manufacture in, 185 
fiefs in, 128 

free properties in, 122 
fruit exports from, 235 
iron-mining in, 184 
Saracen invasion of, 115 
serfdom persisting in, 258 
villeinage in, 133 

Day labourers. See under Agri- 
culture, wage earners 

de Brienne, Duke of Athens, 310 

de Decken, Guillaume, 311 

Debts: recovery of, 166, 
transfers of, 173 

Demesnes, 86, 130; farming-out of, 
241 

Democratic revolution. 
tical rights 

Demogerontes, 265 

Deniers (silver coins), 165 


172; 


See Poli- 


Denmark: 
marine activity of, 274-75 
patriarchal domains in, 272 
peasant conditions in, 275-76; 
population of (8th to 10th 
cents.), 272-78 ; (13th cent.), 
276 
serfdom enforced, 326; pea- 
sant risings (14th to 15th 
cents.), 330 
Thorpes, 273, 276 
Derbyshire, 184 
Devonshire, 73, 294-95 
Dieppe, 176 
Dinanderies, 186 
Dinant, copper and brassworks of, 
1838, 185-86, 296; demo- 
cratic risings in (1255), 217; 
later, 314 
Dinars (silver coins), 165 
Distillation works, 293 
Docks, 193, 208; naval dockyards, 
174 
Dol country, 228 
Domains (see also Landowners): 
chieftains’, in Ireland, 79 
ecclesiastical. See under 
Church 
grouping of, in various coun- 
tries, 129 
imperial: barbarian appro- 
priation of, 19; in Byzan- 
tine Empire, 35-36; con- 
ditions on, 45; feudal no- 
bility’s seizure of, 264-65; 
Carolingian, 64 
Konigshufen in Germany, 228 
patriarchal, in Denmark, 272 
royal: methods of acquiring, 
81-82, 125, 242; organisa- 
tion of, 86; diminution of, 
by alienation, etc., 124-25, 
270; diffusion of, 128; 
status of serfs on, 187, 246; 
reclamation movement as 
affecting, 240; aggrandise- 
ment of, in 138th cent., 
242-43; Scandinavian, 275; 
spread of, 319 
seigniorial (of territorial or 
administrative nobility): 
Byzantine, 37 seq., 265; 
conditions on, in the West, 
45; waste reclamation a 
source of revenue of, 70; 
methods of acquisition of, 
83; the demesne, 86, 130, 
241; holdings on, indomini- 


356 


INDEX 


Domains, seigniorial (continued) : 
cata and dominicata, 86; 
divisions of, into peasant 
holdings, 86, 95-96; towns 
overshadowed by, 113-14; 
under feudalism, 128 (and 
see Feudalism); industry 
connected with, 179 ; tenant 
farming in, 255; ‘‘ states ”’ 
(estados), 319-20; alienation 
of, 319-20 

stabilising effect of, 332 
urban communes’, 244 
wasteland of, 72 

Domesday Book cited, 1238, 136, 
186 

Domestic industry. 
Industry 

Domestic servants, 256 

Domestic service, slavery limited 
to, 438; Corvée obligation 
commuted to, 97; condi- 
tions of (14th cent.), 324-25 

Domicile, liberty of, 248 

Dominicans, land of, 244 

Dordrecht, 163, 290 

Dorfen, 98 

Dortmund, 295 

Douai: a “staple”? town, 164; 
woollen industry of, 188, 
187; merchant gild’s success 
at, 194; population of, 203; 
growth of artisans’ associa- 
tions at(11th to12th cents.), 
210; democratic rising at, 
218; metal work at, 296; 
sworn corporations of, 308 

Dovecots, 140, 145 

Drabans, 271 

Drenthe, 325 

Dress. See Clothes | 

Druzhina, 59 

Ducats, 165 

Duisburg, 164 

Dukes, 84 

Durazzo, 54 

Durham, 185 

Dursteede, 111 

Dye plants, 35, 76, 236, 318 

Dyed goods, 47, 49, 188 

Dyes, trade in, 168, 172 

Dykes, 227-28 

Dynates, 265 


See under 


Earthenware, 4 

Earthquakes, 284 

Eastern Church. 
Eastern 


See Church, 


Eastern Empire. 
Empire 
Ebersberg Monastery, 70 
EKchternach Monastery, 70 
Ecoutétes, 199 
Edelings, 84 
Edged tools, 295 
Edresi cited, 266 
Education: the Church’s efforts 
for, 65; artisans’ interest in, 
223; peasants’ appreciation 
of, 263 
Edward I, King of England, 169 
Edward III, King of England, 169 
Egbert, King, 68 
Eggs, rent levy on, 256 
Egypt, trade with, 111, 175, 289 
Eifel forest, 73 
Elba, Isle of, 184 
Elbe river, 287 
Elbeuf, 187 
Elbing, 228 
Eleutheroi, 265 
Eleutherus, Bishop of Lisieux, 68 
Eligius, 70, 103, 107 
Elnone Monastery, 70 
Embroidery, 49, 157, 188, 223 
Emmeran, 70 
Enamelling, 49, 107, 157, 189, 228 
Enclosures. See Land, common 
Engelbrechtson, 329 
Enghien, tapestries of, 297 
England (see also Britain): 
agriculture in: exports, 1'76, 
233-34; wheat production 
(14th cent.), 235; industrial 
crops, 236; intensive cul- 
tivation, 318 
art in, 107 
beer production of, 186 
- charitable institutions in 
towns of, 208 
cloth trade of (18th cent.), 
188 
coinage of, 154, 165 
commercial development of, 
290. And see sub-heading, 
Exports 
cotters, 324 
democracy in decline in (14th 
cent.), 312 
export trade of, 163, 290, 295, 
296, 318 
famines in, 146 
fen drainage in, 227 
feudalism in, 120, 1238, 125, 
127 
fisheries of, 231, 317 


See Byzantine 


357 


INDEX 


England (continued): 
food industry of, 186 
forest in, 72; clearances, 2380, 


317 
France, ravages of, in (14th 
cent.), 327 


gentry of, 253 

horse-rearing in, 283, 317 

hospitals in, 208, 262 

industrial development of 
(15th cent.), 296 

inheritance abuses in, 249 

interest: rates in, 166 

kings of, sound administra- 
tion organised by (from 
11th cent.), 152; conditions 
under Plantagenets, 196; 
their policy, 283; royal 
support of democratic as- 
pirations, 217 

labour laws in (14th to 15th 
cents.), 824 

labourers in (farm), 257 

landholding in: collective pro- 
perty only among Celts, 
79, 240; bookland, 81; 
private ownership, extent 
of, 838, 3819-20; size of 
feudal fiefs, 128; manors, 
129; holdings, 131; size of 
villeins’ holdings, 141; ac- 
cretions to State property, 
242; copyholders, 254; free- 
holders (14th ecent.), 321; 
tenant farmers (15th cent.), 
323; ecclesiastical property, 
244, 319 

landowning class 
241 

livery companies of, 286 

mercantile marine of, 291 

merchants of the staple, 163, 
283, 286; merchant gilds, 
206, 286; their tyranny, 
208; merchant adventurers, 
283, 286 

mineral products of, 294-95 

monastic colonies in, 69 

nobility of (13th cent.), 242 

Northmen’s invasion of, 115 

peasantry of: rights under 
feudal régime, 144; charters 
of emancipation, 247-48; 
status in 14th cent., 263, 
821; conditions in 15th 
cent., 330; peasant pro- 
prietors, 253; rural indus- 
tries, 293 


in, the, 


England (continued): 

peasants’ revolt (14th cent.), 
328 

population of, in 11th cent., 
76; urban, in Middle Ages, 
112-18; serf proportion of 
(11th to 13th cents.), 186; 
increase in (10th to 18th 
cents.), 237; (15th cent.), 

- 331 

prosperity of: in 18th cent., 
237; in 15th cent., 308 

revenue of (12th cent.), 124 

serfs in, disabilities of, 138 

stock-raising and sheep-farm- 
ing in, 73, 74, 283, 317 

Stourbridge fair, 170 

sworn corporations in, 803 


textile industry of, 282, 
296 

town administration in, type 
of, 199 


towns in, numbers of, 191 
villeinage in, 186. And see 
Villeinage and Villeins 
vine-growing in, 236 
wage-rates in (13th to 14th 
cents.), 259 
waste lands of (11th cent.), 
72, 226 
weights and measures in, 154, 
283 
wool trade of, 163; in 15th 
cents., 318 
wolves exterminated in, 2382 
yeomen of, 253 
English trading abroad, 171 
Engravers, 107 
Epibole, 34 
Epidemics, 29, 76, 146, 272, 284. 
See also Black death i 
Epitropot, 265 
Equality among townsmen, 196, 
197, 202, 212, 215, 2238; 
affirmation of natural 
equality, 245 
Erfurt, 815; monastery, 70 
Kscheat, right of, 160, 170, 171 
Escorts, armed, 109, 170, 171, 193, 
289, 291 
Esgardeurs, 218-14 
Kstates, great. See Domains 
Esthonia, Danish settlers in, 274 
Etampes, 210 
Ethel, 80-81 
Kuric the Visigoth, 62 
Evesham Abbey, 70 
Exchange, treatises on, 287 


358 


INDEX 


Exchangers, 167 (and see Bankers 
and Money) 

Execution for professional faults, 
218 


Fabliaux, 223 
Fabrics, fine, 186-88 
Feesule, battle of (406), 15 
Fair bills or letters, 167, 172 
Fairs: 
Byzantium and Thessalonica, 
at, 52 
chancellors of, 170, 171 
Champagne, 168, 170-72, 287 
feudal tolls on, 140 
importance and organisation 
of, 170, 171, 1738 
international, 269 
money changers and bankers, 


of, 172 

pilgrimages coinciding with, 
110 

prosperity of, in 15th cent., 
287 


royal support of, in 14th to 
15th cents., 64, 1538, 284 
rural, 250 
St. Denis, 110-11 
mentioned, 109, 158, 160, 161, 
198 
Famagusta, 168 
Familia, 191 
Families: peasant, average size of, 
96; co-operative associa- 
tions of, 100 
Family communities: 
German, 9 
Family feuds, 198, 205 
Family industry. See Industry, 
Domestic 
Family life of peasants, 100 
Family property, organisation of, 
in Ireland, 79 
Farm servants, conditions of, in 
14th cent., 324-25 (see also 
Peasants) 
Farmer class, degradation of, in 
Byzantine Empire, 42 
(see also Agriculture) 
Famine, 76, 100, 260, 272; in 
6th cent., 29; causes of, 75; 
endemic in feudal times, 
146, 152; in 14th cent., 284 
Farfa Abbey, 69, 124 
Feast days, 221 
Fens and marshes, 26, 69, 72, 227, 
229 
Ferrara, 113, 229, 297 


Slav, 6; 


Feudal lords: 

agents of, 180, 140, 151 

artisans’ dues paid to, 181 

burgess rights denied to, 197 

castles of, 129 

characteristics of, 87,130, 141, 
144, 147, 150, 241 

coinages of, 154 

common lands seized by, 121 

contempt of, for peasants, 133, 
147, 151 

demesnes of, 86, 180, 24.1 

democratic risings against 
(13th cent.), 219 

divisions among, the mer- 
chants’ opportunity, 193-95 

estate management under, 
130 

exactions and burdens imposed 
by. See under Feudalism 

free landowners eliminated by, 
121 

growth of the class, 126-27 

justice perverted by, 151, 198 

land monopoly of, 120, 125, 
138 ; diffusion of their lands, 
128 

life of, 131 

mercantile rivals of, 178 

peasant emancipation 
ploited by, 246 

police of, 140, 250 

privileges of, 198 

reclamation promoted by, 226 

repression by, 194 

revenues of, increased in 11th 
to 14th cents., 240 

royal policy regarding, 152-53, 
280-81 

subdivision of estates by, 86, 
95-96, 126, 128-30 

tenant farmers, relation with, 


e€x- 


255 
urban patriciate compared 
with, 209 
Feudalism: 


agricultural stagnation under, 
140-41, 152, 159 

anarchy and disorder under, 
192 

beginnings and origin of, 84 
85, 119-20, 143-44 

benefices, 120 

burdens and exactions under, 
98, 135, 139-40, 142, 145- 
146, 148 ; forced hospitality, 
140, 145, 198; commuted or 
limited, 249-50 


359 


INDEX 


Feudalism (continued): 
Byzantine approximation to, 


39, 264-65 

centralised States emerging 
from, 152 

characteristics of, 128, 131, 
151 


Church’s position in, 128; its 
attitude to, 154-55 

concession, deed of, 125 

decline of, 242, 279, 333 

dues under, fixation of, 134, 
143 

fiefs. See that heading 

fiscal disabilities of, 192 

foundation of, 126 

free landowners overthrown 
by, 121 

growth, tyranny and decay of, 
333 

insecurity under, 150, 159, 
160, 192 

investiture and Oath of 
Fidelity, 123, 125, 126 

knights under, 119, 127, 128 

land ownership under, by 
nobles, 120, 125, 188; by 
villeins, 184 

leases under. See Leases 

limitations of, 150-51 

lords under. See 
lords 

military service of, charged 
upon free land, 123 

monopolies of, 140, 145, 159, 
198; banvin, 140, 198 

peasants’ conditions under, 
144-45; right of recapture, 
147 

principle of, contemporane- 
ously defined, 119 

protection afforded by, 1438; 
protection to the working 
masses not secured by, 150, 
159 

Russia, in, 271 

squires under, 127, 129 

tolls under, 159,198 ;reduction 
in number of, attempted, 


Feudal 


164 

trade hampered by, 159, 
192 

urban communes’ place in, 
207 


vassalage, 119; vassals con- 
trasted with tenants, 131 

villeins. See Villeinage and 
Villeins 


Feudalism (continued): 


wars of, 186, 146; their 
savagery and frequency, 
151-52; prohibited, 153; 


truce of God as affecting, 
155; diminution in, 260 

weights and measures under, 
diversity of, 159 

Fiefs: 

Central Europe, in, 271 

hereditary, 125, 207 

nature of, 120, 125 

peasant owners of, 134, 252 

size of, 128 

small free proprietors trans- 
formed into, 121 

Sonnenlehen, 121 

subdivision of, 241 

universality of, presumed, 125 

Figs, 235 

Fines (free proprietors), 87 

Fines replacing death and banish- 
ment, 218 

Finland, Swedish colonisation of, 
274, 

Finnish lands, Russian colonisation 
of (14th to 15th cents.), 
316-17 

Finns, 5, 8, 268, 274 

Fire brigade, 216 

Fisc, 129 

Fish: trade in, 162,177; as food 
staple, 261 

Fisheries: 

Byzantine, 35 

Carolingian period, in, 72 

deep-sea, development of, 231 

North-west European (14th 
cent.), 317 

pisciculture, 72, 231 

Scandinavian, 274 

Fishing : among German tribes, 11; 
peasants’ rights in, 250 

Flanders: 

agriculture encouraged in, 1538 

beer production of, 186 

cattle-farming in, 233 

city fraternities of, 199 

coinage of, 154, 165 

democratic revolts in (8th to 
9th cents.), 101; revolution 
from 1275, 218 ; Jacquerie of 
14th cent., 328 

desolation of, in 6th cent., 25- 
26 

dyers of, 188 

exclusive policy of, 201 

fisheries of, 231 


360 


INDEX 


Flanaers (continued): 
floriculture in, 318 
forests of, 72-73 
furniture-making in, 189 
German factories in, 291 
landowners, small, surviving 
in, 89, 1238 
métayage in, 256 
peasant life in, 145; peasant 
nobles, 252 
Poorters of, 188, 192 
population, increase in (15th 
cent.), 331 
rural communities in (18th to 
14th cents.), 251; rural 
conditions (15th cent.), 331 
tapestries of, 297 
textile industry of (14th cent.), 
296 
trading associations of, 163 
urbanisation of (14th cent.), 
315 
villages of, date of, 229 
wage-slavery in, 220 
Flanders, Count of, 227; demo- 
cratic alliance with, 217-18 
Flax: cultivation of, 76, 236, 268, 
274; trade in, 111, 162, 172, 
176; growth in manufacture 
of, 188 
Florence: 
arms manufacture in, 185 
banking companies of, 167-68, 
288 
black death in, 285 
bridge at, 164 
Ciompi, revolt of the, 310 
coinage of, 165 
corporations of, 183; number 
of artisans’ (14th cent.),211; 
Arti Maggiori, 212, 286, 
303; Arte della Lana and 
Arte di Calimala, 1838, 187, 
208, 211, 286, 296; mutual 
antagonisms, 303 
democratic success in (1250- 
93), 219 
exclusiveness of, 201 
fairs at, prosperity of, 287 
industries of: woollen cloth, 
183, 187; carpet, 188; silk, 
188, 296-97; leather, 189 
mercantile predominance of, 
171 
palaces in, 205 
population of: in 13th cent., 
208; in 14th cent., 315 
- prostitutes of, 308 


Florence, trade of, 163, 289 
Bishop of, 124 
Floriculture, 318 
Flushing, 290 
Fodder crops, the first, 282 
Feederati, 15 
Food: 
fish, 72, 261 
game, 232 
mutton, 2338 
plenty of, in certain countries 
(15th cent.), 331 
prices of, regulated, 209; rise 
of (11th to 14th cents.), 289 
urban provision of, 202 
working class, of, 92, 222, 261 
Food industries, development of, 
186; a town trade, 293 
Forestry, 2382 
Forests: 
Byzantine, 35 
Carolingian period in, 72-73 
clearing of: by Romans, 4; 
in 10th to 14th cents., 229, 
231, 268 
extent of (11th cent.), 226 
feudal times, in, 141 
German, 12 
importance of, economic, 73 
products of, 2382 
royal protection of, 64, 153, 
281 
Scandinavian, 2738, 274, 275 
spread of, under barbarians,25 
wild animals in, 73 
Forez, 185 
Forges, multiplication of, 185 
Formariage, 137, 138 
Fortescue cited, 330 
Fossanova Abbey, 157 
Fox fur, 261 


Frairies. See Artisans, Corpora- 
tions 
France: 


agriculture in: advance of, 
234; corn-growing, 236; 
wheat exports, 235; indus- 
trial crops, 236; day la- 
bourers (hotteurs, bezocheurs) 
(13th cent.), 257; agricul- 
tural poverty in 14th cent., 
316; co-operative farming, 
323 

artistic pioneers from, 269-70, 
275 

associations in: of merchants, 
163, 283, 286; of compag- 
nonnage, 305 


361 


INDEX 


France (continued): France (continued): 


black death in, 285 

burgesses in: lignaiges of, 
206; dwellings of, 209; 
bourgeois dowries, 301 

capitation men, 136 

censitairesin, prosperity of, 259 

Church in: lands of, 124, 319; 
truce of God spread by, 
155. See also sub-heading, 
Monastic Orders 

coinage of, 154, 165 

dairy exports of, 234 

democratic movement in (13th 
cent.), 218-19; democracy 
in decline (14th cent.), 312 

economic policy of (14th to 
15th cents.), 280-81 

fairs of, 170 

famines in, 145, 284 

feudalism in, 85, 121; the 
feudal maxim, 120, 126 

forest preservation in, 232 

fruit exported from, 235 

housing in: burgesses’, 209; 
working class, 222; pea- 
sants’, 260 

industries of: linen, 176, 188; 
iron-mining, 184, 294; iron 
manufactures, 186; arms 
manufacture, 185; dyeing, 
188; art industry, 189; 
furniture-making, 189 ; glass 
works, 189; leather in- 
dustry, 189; luxury indus- 
tries, 282; silk, 282; salt, 
294; silver-mining, 294; me- 
tallurgical industry, 295; 
effects of war on trade and 
industry, 287, 290, 294-96 

interest rates in, 166 

international trade developed 
by, 182-83 

kings of, sound administra- 
tion organised by (from 
11th cent.), 152; conditions 
under Capetian rule, 196; 
royal support for demo- 
cratic aspirations, 217; 
policy of Valois kings, 280, 
283 

knightly class in, decline of, 
24:2 

labour laws in (14th cent.), 324 

land appreciation in (11th to 
14th cents.), 289; deprecia- 
tion (14th to 15th cents.), 
318 


362 


Levantine trade of, 111 
290 

lignaiges of, 206 

merchants’ associations in, 
163, 283, 286; their poli- 
tical rights (12th cent.), 
194 

métayage in, 256 

monastic orders of: as colo- 
nists, 227, 228, 230, 231; 
their market gardening, 
235; their civilising activi- 
ties in central Europe, 267 ; 
Scandinavia civilised by, 
273 

navy of, 289 

nobility of, 127, 206, 242; 
peasant nobles, 252 

Northmen’s invasion of, 115 

peasants in: risings of (1095), 
148; in 14th cent., 327; 
charters of emancipation, 
24'7-48,250;ruralindustries, ~ 
293; general landowning 
by, 320-21; status of, in 
14th cent., 321; rural con- 
ditions of, in 15th cent., 
330 ; 

population of (10th to 13th 
cents.), 237; urban, in 14th 
cent., 315 

postal and passenger services 
in (14th to 15th cents.), 284, 
287 

prosperity of (14th cent.), 203, 
237 


quémans in, 307 

questaux, 136 

revenue of (12th cent.), 125 

roads of (15th cent.), 287; 
royal highways, 163-64 

roturiers in, 182 

serfdom in, 147, 258 

sheep-farming in, 233 

slavery revived in (12th to 
14th cents.), 259 ; slave trade 
in (14th cent.), 326 

social spirit in (14th cent.), 
263 

State property in, 242-43 

strikes in, 217 

tenant farming in (13th 
cent.), 255; in 15th cent., 
323 

terra fiscalis, 129 

thermal and mineral springs 
of, 295 


INDEX 


France (continued) : 

towns in: town life continuous 
in the south, 191; growth 
of (10th to 14th cents. ), 191; 
types of urban administra- 
tion, 199; increase of, in 
14th cent., 260 

trading associations of, 163 

villeins’ holding in, size of, 


141 
vine-growing in, 235-36 
wage-rates in (18th cent.), | 


221; (14th cent.), 259-60, 


307-8; wage-slavery in the | 


north, 220 
wastelands of, 72, 226 
weights and measures in, 154, 
283 
Franche Comté, 185 
Franciscans, 155, 24.4 
Franconia, 70, 185 
Frankalmoin, 123 
Frankfort-on-Main: 
artisans’ corporations in, 211 


carrying trade of, 164, 290-91 | 


crafts in (15th cent.), 302 
democratic risings in, 217 
golden age of, 315 
material prosperity of (15th 
cent.), 308 
State bank of, 288 
sworn corporations in, 303 
Frankfort-on-Oder, fair at, 170, 
269, 287 
Franks: 
conversion of, 65 
domains appropriated by, 19 
Empire of (486-521), 16 
savagery of, 22 
settlements of (5th cent. ), 9 
15; Netherland, 18 
trade regulations of, 109 
Fraternities: 
artisans’. 
heading 
burgesses’, 198, 206 
Fraticelli, 224 
Frederick Barbarossa, 152 


See under that 


Frederick II of Swabia, 152, 
209 
Freedom, attainment of, the 


cardinal achievement of the 
Middle Ages, 335-36 
Freemasons, 305. 
Freemen: 
landowners. See that heading 
and freedmen, 43 
urban, status of, 224 


| 
| 
| 
} 
| 


Freiburg, 294, 299; ‘‘ customs ”’ 
of, 24:7 
Freisingen Bishopric, 82 
Frescoes, 107 
Friessen Monastery, 70 
Friezes and worsteds, 296 
Frilingen, 87 
Frisia: 
climate of, 11 
cloth industry of, 12, 106 
Netherland settlements of, 18 
peasants’ revolts in, 101, 148 
Scandinavian settlements in, 
115 
small landowners surviving 
in, 89, 121, 123 
trade of, 109, 111 
Frisians, 9, 11 
Fritzlar Monastery, 70 
Friuli, 325 
Froissart quoted, 287; cited, 327 
Fruit: trade in, 176, 235; rent 
levy on, 255, 256; Western 
manufaetories of preserved 
fruit, 186 
Fruit trees: 
barbarian destruction of (6th 
cent.), 25 
cultivation of by Romans, 4; 
from 11th to 14th cents., 
235, 266, 268 
vegetable, 185, 232, 293; 
wood, 261; mineral, 293 
Fugger family, 300 
Fulda Abbey, 70, 82, 107 
Fundus, 85 
Furniture: of artisans, 
peasants, 260-61 
Furniture-making, 189 
Furs: trade in, 162, 172, 177, 
274, 297, 300; Parisian in- 
dustry in, 189; peasants’ 
sheepskins, 261 
Fustian, 188, 297, 300 


Fuel: 


222; of 


Galicia: 
city fraternities of, 200 
forest clearances in, 231 
industries of, 186, 294, 297 
sea traffic to, 176 
Gallo-Romans, 68, 84, 107, 109, 
111 
Game protection, 232 
Gandersheim Abbey, 82 
Gardens: barbarian lack of, 12; 
their seizure of Roman, 12; 
spread of (7th to 10th cents.) 


363 


INDEX 


75; feudal, 129; Cistercian | Geoffrey de Troyes, 157 
cultivation of, 274; advance | Gepidi, 33 


in horticulture, 235, 318 Gérard d’Aurillac, 144 
Gardes, 213-14 Germain, Bishop of Paris, 68 
Gardings, 84 Germans: races of, 8-9; charac- 


Gascony, 122, 233 
Gasindes, 84 
Gastaldes, 84, 86 
Gaul: 
agricultural prosperity of (9th 
cent.), 76 
art in, 107 
codes of law in, under Ger- 
mans, 20 
forests in, 73 
German invasion of (5th 
cent.), 15 


teristics and customs of, 
8-9, 18; tribal system of, 9; 
scanty trade of, 12; Hel- 
lenisation of, 18; influence 
of, in Roman lands, 18; 
in Russia, 60; conversion 
of, 65; colonising activities 
of, in 13th cent., 267-68; 
aborigines enslaved by, 
258, 268, 271; Scandinavia 
civilised by, 2738; tyranny 
of, in Denmark, 330 


landholding in: small land- | Germany: 


owners surviving in the 
south, 81, 89; free lease- 
holds, 90-91 
mercantile colonies in, 109 
monasteries in, 70 
nobles in, 84 
peasant life in, 99; peasant 
revolts, 101 
population of (9th cent.), '76 
prosperity of, under Roman 
Empire, 4 
towns destroyed in, 27 
urban revival in, 113 
wine trade of (9th cent.), 75 
Gdansk. See Dantzig 
Geldonie, 105 
Geneva fair, 287 
Genoa: 
artisans’ corporations in, 211 
Bourse of, 287 
coinage of, 165 
democratic success in (1257- 
58), 219 
dockyard at, 174 
exclusiveness of, 201 
~« feudal power broken at, 194 
industrial development of, 192 
merchants from, at Galata, 52 
navy of, 174 
patriciate of, 205 
revolutionary temper in (14th 
cent.), 310 
silk weaving in, 296-97 
State bank of, 288 
trading activity of, 168, 167; 
in 15th cent., 289; Danube 
trade route from, 176; 
trade rivalries with Venice, 
175-76, 266 
Genseric, 16 


364 


agriculture in, rise of, 230; 
industrial crops, 236 

arms manufacture in, 185 

banking in, 288 

black death in, 285 

blast furnaces in, 293 

Bruderschaften in, 805 

Burgs in, 1138 

capitalists from, developing 
foreign mines, 269 

Church lands in (12th cent.), 
124, 319 

cloth industry established in 
(18th cent.), 188, 296-97 

coinage of, under the Hohen- 
staufen, 165 

commercial development of, 
290-91 

community property surviv- 
ing in, 121 

English trade with, 290 

fairs in, 170, 287 

feudalism in, 120, 126-27 

forest: clearances, 229-30; 
preservation, 2382 

Gallo-Roman trade with, 109 

Geschlechter of, 206 

Hanseatic League, 286, 291 

Hanses of, 2838, 286, 291- 
92 

Hohenstaufen rule in, con- 
ditions under, 196 

horse-rearing in, 233 

industrial activity and con- 
ditions in (15th cent.), 294, 
308 

industrial uprisings in (14th 
cent.), 312 

inheritance abuses in, 249 - 
interest rates in, 166 


a2 yr ee 


INDEX 


Germany (continued) : 
iron manufactures of, 186 
Junker class in, 242 
kings of (from 11th cent.), 

sound administration, or- 
ganised by, 152 
land reclamation in, 
30 
landholding in: decline of the 
mark (village 


228- 


(10th cent.), 90, 
marks, 120; non-feudal 
property surviving, 81, 121; 
schaffenbdaren, 
sonnenlehen, 


1382; size of villeins’ hold- 
ings, 141; . cessation of 
collective ownership, 240; 
accretions to State property, 
242; peasant appropriation 
of assarts, 253; size of the 


hufe, 80, 95, 254; Kossaten, | 


324 

leather industry of, 189 

Leibeigenen, 136 

maritime efforts of, 176 

metallurgical supremacy of, 
295 

middle-class incomes in (15th 
cent.), 301 

miners from, 269, 275 

mining activity in, 12, 184, 


294, 295 

nobility of, 84; lesser, under 
feudalism, 127; in 138th 
cent., 242 


patriciate in, 206 

peasants’ leasesin (erbpachten), 
253 

peasant life in, 98-99, 330; 
peasant status, 121-22, 144; 
fief-owning peasants, 121, 
252; peasant revolts, 247; 
rural emancipation, 248; 
peasant appropriation of 
assarts, 253; size of the 
peasant holdings, 254, 324; 
rural industries, 293; risings 
in 15th cent., 329 

population of (10th cent.), 76; 
increase in (10th to 13th 
cents.), 237; (15th cent.), 
331 


property), | 
79, 80; the alod, 81; hérigen | 
132; | 
seigniorial acquisition of | 


lehnbauern, | 
121-22, 252; | 
royal domains, 125; eigen, | 
126; frénhof, 129; tenant | 
holders, 131; free villeinage, 


Germany (continued) : 
postal service in (18th cent.), 
164-65 ; postaland passenger 
service (14th to 15th cents.), 


284, 287 

Pruss populations enslaved by, 
258, 268, 271 

reclamation of (8th cent.), 
68 

roads in, national, 164 

rural charters in, 247-48. 
See also  sub-heading 
Peasant 

salt-pits of, 12 

Scandinavian invasion of, 
115 

sheep and cattle farming in, 
233 


silver-mining in, 294 

Slav occupation of, 6 

sworn corporations in, 808 

thermal and mineral springs 
of, 295 

towns in: numbers of, 191; 
types of administration, 
199; urban communes (14th 
to 15th cents.), 279 

trading methods of, 291-92 

vine-growing in, 286; wine 
trade (9th cent.), 75 

wastelands of, 72, 226 

Gerona, 185 
Ghent, 113: 

gilds in, 206 

industrial development of, 192; 
cloth industry, 1838, 187; 
industrial revolution (14th 
cent.), 311-12 


insurrections at, 195, 218, 
314 

population of, 203; in 14th 
cent., 315 


Gildhalls, 193, 206 

Gilds (see also Corporations) : 
banners of, 214, 224 
burgesses’, 193 
craft (arti), 104 
defence, for, 89 
economic tyranny of, 208 
mercantile. See Merchants, 

associations 

origin of, 101 
personnel and power of, 206- 


religious type of (confratrie), 
105 


status of, 206 
Umiliati (of Milan), 186 


365 


INDEX 


Gite. See Hospitality 

Glasswork: under Roman Empire, 
4; in Byzantine Empire, 50, 
53; glaziers in Carolingian 
period, 107; trade in, 168; 
monastic instruction in, 
157; Western proficiency in, 
189; French supremacy in 


stained glass, 189; royal 
encouragement of, 282; 
Venetian and Czech skill 


in, 297 
Glastonbury Abbey, 70 
Goats, 74, 233 
Goden and Gwaden, 218 
Gold, cloth of, 296 
Gold-mining, 294 
Gold seekers, 184 
Goldsmiths’ corporations, 212 


Goldsmiths’ work, 49, 53, 107, 
228, 297; German, 12; 
monastic instruction in, 


157; French supremacy in, 
189 

Gondebaud, 62 

Gonfaloniers, 219 

Gorods, 7 

Gothland, 275 

Goths, 8, 15, 93 

Grecia Magna: Byzantine resto- 
ration of, 57; trade with, 


111 
Greece: 
artists from, in Italy and 
Spain, 189 


barbarian ravages in, 16 
feudalism in, 265, 267 
heretical colonies in, 33 
missionaries of, in the Bal- 
kans, 267 
Slav repopulation of, 33-34 
wines of, 236 
Greek Archipelago: feudalism in- 
troduced into, 267; trade 
with, 289 
Gregory VII, Pope, 154 
Guelders, 325 
Guibert of Nogent cited, 194 
Guienne, 122, 185, 236 
Guinea Coast, discovery of, 289 
Guinea fowls, 2383 
Gun foundries, 295 
Gutenberg, 298 
Gynecia, 103 


Haardt forest, 73 
Hagenau Monastery, 70 


Hainault: 
coinage of, 154 
democratic rising in (1292), 
217-18 
forest clearances in, 229 
metallurgy in, 295 
mines and quarries of, 185 
trading associations of, 163 
Hainault, Count of, 217 
Ham, 233-34 
Hamburg, 118, 291; State bank 
of, 288 
Hameln Monastery, 70 
Hansards, fisheries of, 817 
Hanseatic League, 163, 275 
Hanses, 168, 177, 198, 206, 291 
(and see Corporations and 
Gilds) 
Hardware, 186 
Hardwyck, 290 
Harvests, meagreness of, 234 
Harz district, mining in, 184, 294 
Hay fields, 282 
Hemp, 236, 268, 274; trade in, 168, 
172, 176 
Henry II, King of England, 152 
Henry II, Emperor, 152 
Henry III, Emperor, 152 
Heracleia, 54 
Hercynian forest, 73 
Heretics, 224; sects of, as colonists, 
33 
Herring fisheries, 231, 317; herring 
trade, 172 
Hersfeld Abbey, 82 
Heruli, 13, 83; invasions by (457- 
76), 16; disappearance of, 
18; spoliation by, 19, _ 
Hervath family, 300 . 
Hesse, Slav colonies in, 68 
Hide (hufe), 80, 88, 95 
Hides, 274, 300 ; 
Highways, 202; security of, safe- 
guarded, 198 ° 
Hochstetter family, 300 
Hof, organisation by, 86 
Hohenstaufen, 165, 196 
Hohenzollern, trade unionism in, 
303 
Holland (see also Low Countries): 
free properties in, 123 
linen industry of, 297 
peasant rising in, 148 
Holstein, 121, 228 
Holy Roman Empire, zenith of, 243 
Homage, 126, 134 
Honey, 35, 232; as sugar substitute, 
233, 261; trade in, 176 


366 


INDEX 


Honfleur, 176, 187 | 

‘* Honour,’ feudal, 152 

Hops, 236, 274 

Hérigen, 90, 182 

Horses, breeding of, 35, 39, 153, 
233, 2'74, 317; value of, in 
Gaul, 74; trade in, 172 

Horticulture. See Gardens 

Hospitality, rights of, 140, 145, 
198; commuted or limited, 
250 

Hospitals and lazar houses, 156, 
208, 224, 262; rural, 251 

Hospites (consortes), 19, 20 

Hospites (hétes), 148, 227; special 
privileges of, 90, 91; degra- 
dation of status of, 1386. 
(See also Coloni) 

Hostises. See under Colonisation 

Housing: hovels, 98, 145; working 
class dwellings, 222; in 
France (14th cent.), 260 

Hufe of land, 80, 95, 254 

Hull, 290 

Hundred Years’ War, 279, 287, 
290, 307 

Hundreds, 11, 79 

Hungary: 


agricultural development of | 


(14th to 15th cents.), 316 
corn-growing in, 268, 318 
Church lands in, 270-71 
civilising of, 267-68 
copper and sulphate mining 

in, 295 
crusades as affecting, 160 
gold and silver mining in, 294 
lead mines in, 269 
Magyars’ Christian kingdom 

of, 115 
poverty of (14th cent.), 316 
serfdom in (18th cent.), 271, 

326 

Huns, 5, 15, 16, 24, 26 
Hunting: among German tribes, 

11; feudal lords’ rights of, 

140, 145; peasants’ rights, 

250 

Hursites, 279, 329, 331 
Huy, 185-87, 217 
Hygiene, progress in, 222 


{le-de-France: 
fair at, 170 
forest clearances in, 280 
peasant rising in, 227 
serfdom persisting in, 258; 
privileged serfs, 137 


Ile-de-France (continued) : 
stone quarries of, 185 
textile industry of, 187-88 
trade routes to, 176 


| lumination, art of, 46, 189 


Illyria, 16, 26 
Image-makers, 223 
India, trade with, 111, 289 
Indigo, 236 
Industrial plant culture, 4, 7, 34, 
76, 141, 2386, 266, 268, 
318 
Industry (see also particular indus- 
tries, as Glass, Salt, etc.): 
advances, system of, 220 
apprentices. See that heading 
art industries, perfection of, 
in 11th to 14th cents., 180, 
223, 295; French supremacy 
in, 189-90 
artisans. See that heading 
Byzantine supremacy in, 48, 
105, 180; lost to the West, 


266 

capitalistic. Seesub-heading, 
Great 

Central European (138th cent.), 
269 


cliques in, 303-4 
corporations, sworn. 
under Artisans 
craft, nature and scope of, 
181-82; craft banners, 214, 
224 

domestic, scope of, 46, 102, 
179, 181; baking removed 
from, 212; survival of, 214, 
275, 292 

educative methods in (15th 
cent.), 305 

foreigners’ competition, pro- 
tection against, 221 

free crafts. See 
Artisans 

German, 12 

‘great’? (capitalist), begin 
nings of, 162, 220, 3384; 
Central European mines 
developed by, 269 ; methods 
of, 292; development of, 
299; limited range of, 302, 
307. See also Capitalists 

harmonious relations in, 223 

holidays in, 221 

hours of labour (14th cent.), 
221 

journeymen 
heading 


See 


under 


in. See that 


367 


INDEX 


Industry (continued): 

luxury: royal support of, 282; 
a town industry, 2938 

manorial or domanial, 102,179 

mechanical methods _intro- 
duced in, 180, 293-95 

metallurgical. See that head- 
ing 


mines. See that heading 
monastic centres of, 65, 103-4, 
157 


Moslem, 180 
necessity trades, unions most 
easily organised in, 211 
night work in, regulations as 
to, 221 
profits of, fair distribution of, 
secured, 216 
raw materials for, rationing 
of, by townships, 202 _ 
rings and monopolies in, 283 
Roman Empire in (early 5th 
cent.), 4 
royal policy regarding (14th 
to 15th cents.), 282 
rural, 281, 292-93 
Slav, 7 
‘** small,’” conditions in (15th 
cent.), 302, 307-8 
specialisation in, 293 
standard of, safeguarded, 215 
State manufactures, 47, 1538 
technique of, 293 
textile. See that heading 
truck system in, 220 
unemployment, security from, 
220-21 
urban: in Byzantine Empire, 
46; development of, 180; 
risings in (15th cent.), 306 
water power in, 293, 295 
Western rivalry in, with By- 
zantium, 186, 188-90, 266 
women’s cheap labour in, 221 
workshops. See that heading 
Inequality of classes under Ger- 
mans, 9, 20 
Ingenui, 87, 92 
Ingria, 274 
Inheritance: 
‘* best chattel”? abuses, 249 
Byzantine provisionsfor, 41, 44 
coloni, by, 93 
dues on, 265 
feudal Germany, in, 126 
main morte. See that heading 
rights of, acquired by pea- 
sants, 249, 253 


Inheritance (continued) : 
servile, 96, 97, 189 
villeins’, by, 184, 142 
women admitted to, 65, 81, 
270, 275; women barred 
from, 272 
Inlaying, 49, 107, 297 
Innocent III, Pope, 154 
Innocent IV, Pope, cited, 166 
Inns and refuges, 165 
Insecurity, general (6th cent.), 
28; under feudalism, 150, 
159, 160, 192 
Insurance, commercial, 52, 109, 
198; maritime, 174 
Intellectual pleasures, 87 
Interest: common view regarding, 
51; rates of, 51, 274, 287. 
See also Credit 
Invasions. See under Barbarians 
Iona, 69, 107 
Ireland: 
agricultural prosperity of (9th 
cent.), 76; exports, 2383-34 
art in, 107 
cattle important in, 73 
Celts enslaved in, 258 
communistic life in (7th cent.), 
78-79 
conversion of, 65 
emigration from (7th to 10th 
cents.), 76 
English kings’ possession of 
(12th cent.), 124 
epidemics in, 29 
factious backwardness of, 63 
monastic colonies in, 69 
Northmen’s invasion of, 115 
poverty of (14th cent.), 316 
rural conditions in (15th 
cent.), 330 
trade with, 109, 111 
tribal property in, survival of, 
78 


vine-growing in, 75 
wasteland in, 72 
Iron, value of, under Charlemagne, 
106; trade in, 176; centres 
of manufacture, 186; wire, 
295 
Iron mining: German, 12; Byzan- 
tine, 49; abandonment of, 
105; expansion in, 184, 
294-95; capitalistic devel- 
opment of, 269; in Sweden, 
275 
Irrigation: Byzantine, 84; West- 
ern, 2382, 2385 


. 368 


INDEX 


Italy (continued) : 
industries of: iron-mining, 


Ischia, 184 
Istria, 57, 236 


agriculture and stock-raising: 
prosperity in 9th cent., 76; 
free cultivators, 91; pas- 
ture-farming in South and 
Central, 233, 317; intensive 
methods, 234; industrial 
crops, 2386; co-operative 
farming, 323 

arms manufacture in, 185 

art in, 107; artistic pioneers 
from, 269-70 

bankers of. See under 
Bankers 

banking system of, interna- 
tional, 288 

barbarian invasion of, 15, 16, 
27 

black death in, 285 

Byzantine restoration of, 57; 
loss of the south, 264 

Byzantine trade secured by, 
266 

canons in, 255 

capitalists from, developing 
foreign mines, 269 

colonisation of south by freed 
slaves, 33 

commons in, 319 

dairy exports of, 234 

day labourers in (braccianti, 
pimentt), in 13th cent., 257, 
259 

democratic movement in 
(13th cent.), 218-19 

ducats of, 288 

ecclesiastical property in 
north and central, 319 

economic policy of (14th to 
15th cents.), 280-81 

fairs in, 170, 287 

famines and epidemics in, 29 

fashion leader (13th cent.), 
189 

feudalism in, 120; non-feudal 
proprietors (bozadores) sur- 
viving, 87, 88, 121; size 
of estates, 128 ; their minute 
subdivision, 241 

forest in, 73; clearances, 231, 
317; preservation in the 
south, 232 

fruit exports from, 235 

horse-breeding in, 233, 317 

industrial activity of (15th 
cent.), 294; conditions, 308 


369 


Italy: 184, 186, 294; food, 186; 


cloth, 186-87; dyeing, 188; 
linen, 188; furniture, ivory, 
leather, 189; luxury, 282; 
salt, 294; silver-mining, 
294; metal, 295; silk-weav- 
ing, 296-97; inlaying, 297 

interest rates in, 166 

labour laws in (14th cent.), 
324 

land drainage in, 229 

landholding in: extent of 
royal lands, 81-82; tenant 
farming, 181; in 13th cent., 
255; in 15th cent., 328; 
the rivello, 254; land sub- 
division, 254-55; private 
estates, 319-20; general 
landowning, 320 

market gardening and horti- 
culture, 235 

mercantile colonies in, 109; 
mercantile activity, 159, 
162-63, 167-68, 171; mer- 
chant nobility, 192; mer- 
chants’ political rights in 
12th cent., 194; Italian 
merchants in Byzantium, 
52; merchant republics of, 
see Florence, Genoa, Pisa, 
Venice 

money economy originating 

in, 165 

nobility of, 84; merchant, 192; 
their fate in 13th cent., 242 

peasant life in, 99; revolts, 
101; emancipation, 246, 
248; rural conditions in 
15th cent., 330 

Po embankment, 316 

population; increase in (8th 
cent.), 76; in 14th cent., 
237 ; increase in (15th cent.), 
331 

postal and passenger service 
in (14th to 15th cents.), 
164, 284, 287 

prosperity of, under Roman 
Empire, 4; consequent on 
urban activities, 203 

Saracen invasion of, 115 

serfs in (Vassali or Aldions), 
136 

slavery revived in (12th to 
14th cents.), 259; slave 
trade in 14th cent., 326 


2B 


INDEX 


Italy (continued) : 
stone quarries of, 184-85 
sulphur beds in, 184 
sworn corporations in, 303 
thermal and mineral springs 
of, 295 
towns in: destroyed by bar- 
barians, 27; urban renais- 
sance, 113; continuous town 
life, 191; types of urban 
administration, 199; urban 
communes in central and 
northern, 279; enslavement 
of communes (15th cent.), 
310 
trade activities of: interna- 
tional, 182-83; annual gal- 
ley service to Sluys, 176 
wage rises in, 307 
wasteland in, 72, 226 
wines of, 75, 236 
Ivory Coast, discovery of, 289 
Ivory workers, 50, 107, 189, 223; 
trade, 111 


Jacqueries, 148-49 
Jaén, 188 
Jagellon kings, 316, 330 
Jahde, Gulf of, 228 
Jaime I of Spain, 152 
Jarrow, 107; Abbey, 70 
Jativa, 189 
Jeanne of Navarre, 
France, 209 
Jerome, St., cited, 24 
Jewel trade, 168 
Jews: 
condition of, in Spain and 
Sicily, 258 
money-lending and pawn- 
broking by, 109, 160, 167, 
268, 288 
royal policy regarding (14th 
to 15th cents.), 283 
trading by, 109, 160 
John the Good, King of France, 
282, 283 
Jongleurs, 178, 223, 262 
Journeymen: status of, 212-13; 
gilds of, 305; masters’ en- 
croachments against (15th 
cent.), 304-5, 334 
Journeys, accounts of, 287 
Judges, 199 
Jumiéges Abbey, 70 
Jurats, 199 
Jurés, 213-14 
Jurisprudence, treatisee on, 287 


Queen of 


Jury service, 253 

Jus maliractandi, 258 

Jus mercatorum, 161, 174, 194, 
287 

Jus pale, 134, 2538 


- Justice: 


feudal lords’ perversion of, 
151, 198 
merchants’ rights of, 174, 194, 
287 
revenue from rights cf, 240 
villeins’ rights of, 248-50 
Jutes, 9, 11, 16, 23 
Jutland, 273 


Kaballarioi, 39, 265 
Kempten Monastery, 70 
Khazars, 5, 53 
Kherson, 58, 55 
Kiev, 8, 59, 269, 270 
Kings and princes. 
power 
King’s Peace, the, 153 
Klauwaerts, 217 
Kmetons, 2771 
Knights: of Byzantine Empire, 
89, 265; burgess privileges 
granted to, 197; municipal 
control seized by, 205; 
their numbers in England 
in llth and 12th cents., 
127; change in status and 
fortunes of, 240-41 
K6nigsberg, 270, 291 


See Royal 


La Rochelle, 236 
Labour (see. also Artisans, In- 
dustry, Peasants): 
demand for, in feudal times, 
143 
freedom of, security for, 215 
laws regarding, in Italy, 324 
power of, growth in, 298 
rise in price of, 259-60. See 
also Wages 
scarcity of, after black death, 
285, 317, 324 
Lace-making, 293, 297 
Lagny fair, 171 
Land: 
alienations of, 81, 270, 275; 
royal, 124, 270; by villeins, 
1384, 142, 249, 258; by 
feudal owners, 240-41, 244 
allodial (free) estates, ab- 
sorption of (18th cent.) in 
nobles’ lands or peasants’ 
holdings, 123 


370 


INDEX 


Land (continued) : Land (continued): 


aristocratic ownership of. 
See Landed aristocracy 

beneficia, 84 

burgage tenure, 122 

burgess property, 198 

Church lands. See under 
Church, Eastern, and 
Church, Latin 

common lands: feudal lords’ 
seizure of, 121, 240; res- 
triction of peasants’ rights, 
148; reclaiming of, 281; 
Scandinavian, 275; genera] 
enclosure of, 319, 322 

communal ownership of. See 
under Property 

copyhold, 123, 254, 320 

division of, equally among 
heirs, 141, 254 

domains. See that heading 

enclosure of meadowland, 10, 
79 

ethel, 11 

family ownership of, 80 

feudal tenure of. 
‘Feudalism 

forfeiture of, for bad culti- 
vation, 34, 41 

Frankalmoin tenure, 123-24 

importance of, 28, 33, 67, 159 

improvements, peasants’ 
rights in, 134 

individual ownership of, sub- 
stituted for collective, 78- 
79, 318-19, 323 

inheritance of. 
heading 

insufficiency of, 257 

leases. See that heading 

manor. See that heading’ 

Merovingian estates, size of, 83 


See 


See that 


morcellement, 128-30, 141, 
241, 254 

mortgage, right of, 253 

reclamation of. See Waste- 


land 
rights in, transference of (12th 
to 14th cents.), 244-45, 254 
Salic, 11 
Scandinavian tenure, 272 
serjeanty, tenants in, 127 
sole capital (6th cent.), 28, 
33, 159 
title deeds of, 125; destroyed 
by peasants, 241, 246 
tribal ownership of. See under 
Property 


Landed 


unearned increment, 255 
value of, statistics as to, 239 
vavasours’ tenure, 122 
village holdings of, 10-11 
(and see Property, com- 
munal) 
waste. See Wasteland 
aristocracy (see also 
Feudal lords): under the 
Germans, 20, 21; in Byzan- 
tine Empire, 88-40; land 
reclamation promoted by, 
70; their origin and evolu- 
tion, 83-84; their absclute 
authority, 85, 97-98; their 
characteristics and amuse- 
ments, 87; their usurpa- 
tions, 80, 82, 83, 116 


Landowners, small free: usurpa- 


tions from, 20, 38-39, 80, 82, 
83, 116, 265; Byzantine pro- 
tection of, 88, 41-42, 116; 
Carolingian protection of, 
64; pioneers in reclamation, 
70-71; struggle of, against 
large proprietors, 87-88, 
265; status of, 88; over- 
thrown by feudalism, 121, 
265; increased revenues of 
(11th to 14th cents.), 240; 
the class in Scandinavia, 275 


Langres, Bishop of, 82, 124 
Languedoc: 


Byzantine trade secured by, 
266 

coal-mining at, 185 

colonisation of Lower (9th 
cent.), 68 

day labourers in (brassiers) in 
18th cent., 257 

depopulation of (15th cent.), 
330 

drainage of, 228 

feudal power broken in, 194, 
195 

fruit exports from, 235 

industries of, 185, 187, 188, 297 

land tenure in: free properties, 
122; subdivision of feudal 
estates, 241; perpetual 
leases, 91, 183 

trading activities of, 175-76, 
296; Jewish traders, 109 

Tuchin rising in, 827 

vineyards of, 236 


Laon, 195, 314; Bishop of, 247 
Lapps, 274 


371 


INDEX 


Lard, 172, 233, 274 

Las Huelgas Abbey, 243 

Law: variations in fiscal law, 174; 
maritime law, 1738 

Lazar houses, 156, 262 

Le Mans, 194 

Lead, trade in, 176 

Lead-mining, 49, 105, 269, 294. 

Leases (see also Rent): @ cens, a 
complants, 91, 103,132, 1338, 
241, 247, 249, 258, 254; 
restrictions in, 198; emphy- 
teotiques, 247; a _ cheptel 
(stock leases), 256; per- 
petual leasehold, 91, 133; 
métayage, 256; length of 
tenant farmers’ leases, 255 

Leather, trade in, 172, 176, 177 

Leather work, in Roman Empire, 

_ 4;in Byzantine Empire, 49, 


111; trade in, 111, 168; 
saddlery, etc., 189; gilded, 
189, 297 


Leipzig fair, 269 
Lemons, 235 
Lens Abbey, 69 
Leo III, Emperor, 53 
Leon, 200 
Leprosy, 146, 284 
Lerida, 185 
Les Andelys, 187 
Letters of Marque, 173 
Letts, 7 
Levant: 
cotton exports of, 297 
feudalism in, 120 
French trade with, 111, 290 
importance of trade with, 108, 
112 
maritime powers’ concessions 
in, 174 
Scandinavian relations with, 
275 
Liberty, personal, rural acquisi- 
tion of (11th to 14th cents.), 
248, 251; attainment of 
freedom the cardinal 
achievement of the Middle 
Ages, 335-36 
Lides, 91, 92. See also coloni 
Liége, 113; coal - mining and 
metallurgy in, 295; insur- 
rection in (12th cent.), 195; 
democratic risings (1253), 
217; revolutionary temper 
at (14th cent.), 312, (15th 
cent.), 314; cluppelslagers? 
revolt, 328 


Lighthouses, 174 

Lille, British trade with, 163; fair 
at, 170; industries of, 183, 
187, 188; population of, 
203; democratic successes 
at, 218 

Limagne, 236 

Limburg, 185, 270 

Limoges, 188, 297-98 

Limousine March, 138, 325 

Lindisfarne, 107 

Linen clothes, 261 

Linen manufactures, 12, 49, 106, 
176, 188, 297 

Lipany, battle of, 329 

Literature, urban, 223 

Lites, 132 

Lithuania: civilising of, 267-68; 
rural slavery in, 271 

Lithuanians, 6, 826 

Livellarii, 91 

Livestock, small, predominating 
over large, 74, 141, 282-33 

Livonia, civilising of, 267-68 

Livonians, 6 

Loans, 52, 166; negotiated at 

fairs, 172. See also Credit 

and Interest 

government, peasants’ 

association with, 250-51, 

334. See also Municipal 

government | 

Locks (sluice), 287 

Locksmiths’ work, 186, 295 

Lodi, 194 

Lodigiano, 229 

Lods et ventes, rights of, 254 

Logronio, *“‘ customs ”’ of, 247 

Loire district, 280, 286 

Loire river, 283, 287 

Lollards, 224 

Lombards, 9, 33; spoliation by, 
16, 19-21, 24; aristocratic 
organisations of, 18; sav- 
agery of, 23 


Local 


Lombardy : 
banking companies of, 288; 
merchant. bankers and 


money-lenders from, 168, 


288; royal policy as to 
(14th to 15th — cents.), 
283 

black death in, 285 


Church lands in, 124 

city fraternities of, 200 

feudal power broken 
195 

free proprietors in, 122 


in, 


372 


INDEX 


Lombardy (continued): Low Countries (continued) : 


grain-growing in, 235; agri- 
cultural progress (14th 
cent.), 316 
irrigation in, 229 
merchants from, 109; their 
trading supremacy, 163 
royal domains in, 82 
rural emancipation in, 248 
sluice locks in, 287 
London: 
administration of, 199 
_ . black death in, 285 
* commune proclaimed (1141), 
195 
corporation antagonism in, 
304 
German methods in, 292 
Hanse of, 163 
Italian bankers and counting 
houses in, 168, 289 
London Bridge, 164 
merchants in, 163 
population of, 112, 203; in 
14th cent., 315 
Port of, 290 
sworn corporations in, 303 
wages in (14th cent.), 221 
Lorraine, salt industry of, 105, 
185; foundries of, 185; 
serfdom persisting in, 258 
Lorris, ‘‘ customs ”’ of, 196, 247 
Lorsch Abbey, 82, 92 
Louis VII, King of France, 245 
Louis EX (Saint), King of France, 
82, 152 
Louis X, King of France, 245 
Louvain, 187, 312 
Low Countries (see also Belgium 
and Holland): 
agriculture and stock-raising 
in, 282-34; industrial crops, 
236; tenant farming in 18th 
cent., 255; in 15th cent., 
323; day labourers (koppers), 
257; cattle fattening, 317; 
intensive cultivation, 318 
_ artisans’ corporations organ- 
ised late in, 211 
black death in, 285 
democratic risings in (1095), 
148; successes (13th cent.), 
218; class struggle in 14th 
cent., 310-12; the Jacquerie, 
328 ; rebellions of 15th cent., 
314 
dyking and draining in, 227- 
28 


373 


economic policy of (14th to 
15th cents.), 280-81 

fairs of, 170 

feudalism in, 120, 121, 129, 180 

fisheries of, 231, 317 

forest in: extent of, 72, 73; 
clearances, 230, 317; pre- 
servation, 232 

horse-rearing in, 283 

industrial activity (15thcent.), 
294; conditions, 308 

industries of: food, 186; cloth, 
187 ; luxury, 282; rural, 293; 
metal work, 296 

inheritance abuses in, 249 

iron-mining in, 184 

knightly class in, decline of, 
242 

landholding in: community 
property surviving, 121; 
free properties, 122-23; 
Church lands, 124; decline 
in communal property (11th 
to 14th cents.), 240; accre- 
tions to State property, 
242; fief-owning peasants 
in, 252; peasants’ leases 
(beklemregt), 253-54; general 
landowning, 320 

land reclamation in, 228 

lignaiges of, 206 

money economy originating in, 
165 

nobles in, 84; town nobility, 
206 

Northmen’s invasion of, 115 

peasant rising of (1095), 148; 
rural charters, 247-48; 
fief-owning peasants, 252; 
peasants’ leases (beklemregt), 
253-54; peasants’ status 
(12th to 14th cents.), 2638, 
321; rural industries, 293; 
rural conditions (15th cent.), 
330 

Poorters of, 188, 192 

population of, increase in, 237 5 
in 15th cent., 331 : 

postal and passenger service 
in (14th to 15th cents.), 287 

prosperity of, consequent on 
urban activity, 203 

roads in, national, 164 

Scandinavian settlements 1n, 
115 

sea encroachments in, 284; 
defences, 316 


INDEX 


Low Countries (continued): 
serfs of the glebe in, 258 
town administration in, type 
of, 199; urban nobility in, 
206 ; urban communes (14th 
cent.), 279 
trade of: Frisian, 109; inter- 
national, 182-83; English, 
290; the carrying trade, 
290 
villeins in: free, 182; unfree, 
136 
vine-growing in, 235 
wastelands of, in 11th cent., 
72, 73, 226 
wheat exports of, 235 
Liibeck, 177, 312, 315; the Hanse, 
291 
Lucca, trading activities of, 163; 
banking, 167, 168, 288; 
fair, 170; industries of: 
arms, 185; cloth, 186; silk, 
188, 296-97; feudal power 
broken, 194 
Lucera, 188-89 
Lugo, 195 
Luitprand, 63, 64 
Lund, 275 
Luxembourg, 325 
Luxeuil, 82; Abbey, 70 
Luxury, Merovingian and Caro- 
lingian periods contrasted 
as to, 106; growth of, 296. 
And see under Industry and 
Trade 
Lyonnais, 185 
Lyons, 118, 315; bridge at, 164; 
Italian counting houses at, 
289; free craft régime, 
302 


Macedonia, 4; Slav occupation of, 
6; ‘*Slavenia,’”? 83; Slav 
and Bulgar colonisation of, 
268 

Machinery, use of, 180, 293-94 

Machtiern, '79, 83, 84 

Maestricht, 1138, 187 

Magdeburg, 1138, 291, 815; woollen 
industry, 187; artisans’ cor- 
porations, 211; democratic 
rising, 312 

Magyars, 5, 53; Byzantine attrac- 
tion for, 59; invasions by 
(9th to 10th cents.), 115; 
Western influences among, 
267 


Maine, 91, 188, 327 

Mainferme, 183 

Mainmorte, 1386, 137, 321, 325; 
exemptions from, 104, 249; 
nature of, 189; abuses of, 


| 148 

Mainz, 106, 118, 127, 3815; 
democratic risings in, 195, 
217 


Mainz, Archbishop of, 243 
Majorats, 213-14 
Majorca, 189; black death in, 285; 
peasant risings in (15th 
cent.), 827-28; slavery in 
(14th cent.), 326; textile 
industry of, 296 
Malaria, 99 
Malines, 296-97 
Malmédy Monastery, 70 
Manentes, 92 
Mannsfeld, 295 
Manor Courts, 144 
Manorial industries, 102, 179 
Manors, 79, 838, 85 
Manses, 82, 83; extent of, 11; 
ingeniules, 92; vassals’ and 
tenants’, 131 
Mantes, 195 
Mantua, 211, 229 
Manuscript-copying, 107 
Map makers, 289, 297 
Marabotins, 165 
Maravedis, 165 
Marble, 49, 294 
Marburg Monastery, 70 
Marcel, Etienne, 314 
Marcellinus, Ammianus, cited, 4 
Marco Polo, 175 
Marengo estate, 96 
Marienburg, 228 
Mark, 10 
Market gardening, 235 
Markets: 
feudal tolls on, 140 
market-right, 112 
merchants’ tables in, 109 
organisation of, 117 
restoration of, under Caro- 
lingians, 64 
royal support of (14th to 15th 
cents.), 284 
rural, 250 
Slav, 8 
staples, 163 
weekly, 111; urban trading in, 
161-62 
mentioned, 1538, 158, 159, 161, 
193, 198, 202 


374° 


INDEX 


Marriage, servile, 136; formariage, | Merchants (continued) : 


187, 138; restrictions modi- 
fied, 248 
Marseilles: 
democratic success in (1218), 
219 
dockyard at, 174 
feudal power broken at, 195 
merchants’ and sailors’ in- 
surrection at, 194 
prosperity of, in crusading 
era, 175 
statutes of, 173 
trade of, 111 
Marshes: extent of (11th cent.), 
226; draining of, 4, 268, 
273, 280, 316 
Masnadores, 127, 128 
Massa, 85 
Massari liberi, 91 
Masters: of crafts, 212-13; of cor- 
porations, 213; monopo- 
listic policy of, 304-5, 334 
Mastership: royal letters of, 282; 
poverty a bar to (15th 
cent.), 304 
Maurice de Sully, 157 
Mayeur de banniére, 213 
Meadows, 69, 180, 141; enclosure 
of, 10, 79 
Meat trade, 162, 163 
Meaux, 327 
Mecklenburg, 274, 325 
Medecis, Cosimo de, 299 
Medicines, 75, 168, 172 
Medina del Campo, 170 
Mediterranean Sea, trading supre- 
macy of, 111, 161, 174-75, 
289; fisheries of, 231; road 
communication with, 287 
Merchant marines, 284 
Merchants: 
associations, gilds, etc., of: 
for defence, 109; with lim- 
ited liability, 162; large 
federations, 163, 194, 286, 
291; Hanses, 1638, 177, 193, 
206, 291; power of the gild 
developing earlier than arti- 
sans’, 193; Italian, see under 
Florence, corporations; 
large-scale entrepreneurs, 
see Industry, great 
charters brought by, from 
feudal powers, 195 
Church protection of, 157 
escorts for fleets and caravans 
of 109,170,171, 193,289, 291 


feudal classes outrivalled by, 
178 
** foreigners,’ 160, 162, 192; 
civil rights granted to, by 
town communities, 197 
insecurity of, under feudalism, 
159, 160, 192 
jus mercatorum, 161, 174, 194, 
287 
noble rank attained by, 192 
offices of, 183 
political rights of (12th cent.), 
194, 197; denied, 196 
power of, 198, 2838 
privileges granted to, 153, 160, 
170, 171, 194, 268 ; jurisdic- 
tional, 174, 194 
progressive character of, 192- 
93 
status of, in feudal town- 
ships, 191-92 
Mercury, 184, 269, 295 
Meropsi, 271 
Merovingian period, 106 
Messen, edict of (847), 88 
Messina, 199 
Messines fair, 111, 170 
Mestierit. See Artisans, corpora- 
tions 
Metallurgy: in Roman Empire, 4; 
Slav, 6; Byzantine, 49; 
development of, 185, 269, 
275, 300; royal support of, 
282; invention of blast fur- 
naces, 295 
Metals, trade in, 168 
Métayage, 323, 335; origin of, 256; 
advantages of, 259; accen- 
sement superseded by, 322 
Métayers, degradation of, in By- 
zantine Empire, 41, 42; 
status and condition of, in 
the West, 90, 256, 324 
Métiers jurés. See Artisans, cor- 
porations 
Metz, 106, 113, 206 
Meuse district, 106, 230 
Middle class in Roman Empire, 8. 
And see Bourgeoisie 
Middleburg, 290 
Middlemen, 102, 107-8, 160, 161 
Milan: 
industrial development of, 
192; arms manufacture, 
185, cloth, 186, 296; linen 
and fustian, 297 
marshes of, drained, 229 


375 


INDEX 


Milan (continued): 
palaces in, 205 
population of (12th to 18th 
cents.), 203 
reconstruction of, 1138, 114 
revolutions at (10th to 11th 
cents.), 198, 195; demo- 
cratic successes (1200-1286), 
219 
Military colonies, 33, 68 
Military service, feudal obligations 
of, 126, 183 
Militias, popular, 216, 219 
Milk, 261 
Mills, 105, 186 
Mineral rights, claims to, 270, 275 
Mineral springs, 106 
Miniaturists, 223 
Mining: 
abandonment of, before Caro- 
lingian period, 105 
companies for, 184 
development of(13th cent. ),184 
gold, 294 
industrial development of, 
under Roman Empire, 4 
iron. See Iron 
lead, 49, 105, 269, 294 
royal support for exploitation 
of (14th to 15th cents.), 282 
silver, 269, 294 
water-power used in, 293 
Ministeriales, 242 
Minofledes, 8'7 
Mirdite settlements, 33 
Mirrors, 189 
Modena, 1138, 186, 316 
Mesia: Slav occupation of, 6; 
Gothic settlements in 4th 
cent., 15; barbarian ravages 
in, 16; towns destroyed, 27 ; 
salt marshes of, 49 ; Slavised 
Bulgar Empire i in, 58-59 
Moissac Abbey, 70, 157 
Moldavia, 319 
Monarchical 
Royal 
Monasteries : 
agricultural achievements of, 
68-69 
Eastern, 37 
industrial centres at, 108, 157 
influence of, 65 
oblates, 187 
Monastic Orders, mendicant, 
landed property of, 244. 
See also under France 
Money. See Coinage and Currency 


government. See 


Money changers, 46, 52, 167, 288; 
fairs of, 172; corporations 
of, 212 

Money economy, rise of, 159 seq. ; 
industrial organisation as 
affected by, 180; mining 
stimulated by, 184. 

Money-lending by Jews, 109, 160, 
167, 268, 288 

on ee 107 

Mongols, 5 

Monopolies, patrician’s, in urban 
communes, 208; craft, 214; 
litigation arising from, 215; 
master craftsmen’s policy 
of, 304-5, 334 

Mons-en-Pevéle, 218 

Monte Cassino Abbey, 37, 69 

Monte Maggiore Abbey, 70 

Montenegro, 57 

Montferrat, 229, 325 

Montivilliers, 187 

Montpellier, merchant colonies in, 
1638; prosperity of, in cru- 
sading era, 175; cloth in- 
dustry of, 187; industrial 
development of, 192; feudal 
power broken at, 195; de- 
mocratic success in (1246), 
219; revolutionary temper 
in (14th cent.), 312, 314 

Monts de piété, 288 

Moravia, 6, 267-69 

Moravian Empire, 57 

Mortgages, 241, 253; loans on, 166, 
169 

Mortitai, 44 

Mortmain, 244, 319 

Mortuarium, 127 

Morvan, 230 

Mosaic work, 46, 50, 58, 107, 189 

Moscow, 270 

Moselle lands, 235, 289 

Moslems (see also Arabs): treaties 
with, 53; commercial trea- 
ties, 174; condition of, in 
Spain and Sicily, 258; cru- 
sades against, see Crusades 

Moteles, 265 

Moujiks, 60, 2'71 

Movable wealth. See Capital and 
Property, movable 

Mulberries, 2386 

Mule-breeding, 2383 

Municipal government, varieties 
of, in different countries 
(15th cent.), 309. 
Local government 


See also 


376 


oie 


INDEX 


Murano glassworks, 189 
Murbach Monastery, 70 
Murcia, 229 

Muscovy, 319, 326 
Muslins, 58, 172, 188 
Mystery plays, 223 


Namur, 295 

Namurois, 184, 325 

Nantes, 111, 176, 185 

Naples: industries of, 49, 185, 
187-89, 296; prosperity of, 
55; craft gilds at, 104; 
merchant colonies in, 163 

Narbonne: Visigothsestablishedin, 
15; industries of: salt, 105; 
cloth, 187; industrial de- 
velopment, 192; trade of, 
111; prosperity of, in cru- 
sading era, 175; black 
death in, 285; free craft 
régime in, 302 

National economy, development 

| of a, 280 seq. 

Nauplia, 54 


Nautical science, advance in, 
289 
Navarre: 
day labourers in (13th cent.), 
257 


forest clearances in, 231 
kings of (from 11th cent.), 
sound administration or- 
ganised by, 152 
rural emancipation in, 248; 
conditions in 15th cent., 
330; serfs in, 136 
Navies to protect commerce, 174, 
284 
Negrepont, 54 
Netherlands. See Low Countries 
Neustria, 68, 115 
Neuville-Saint-Vaast, 91 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 185, 
295 
Newfoundland fisheries, 317 
Nicelas quoted, 266 
Nicholas Breakspear, 155 
Nicopolis, 39, 49, 54 
Nimes, 163, 812; fair at, 170; 
feudal power broken at, 
195; democratic success in 
(1272), 219 
Niort, 164 
Nivernais, 249, 325; free proper- 
ties in, 122; villeinage in, 
188; privileged serfs in, 
137 


290, 


Nobility (see also Aristocracy) : 
Byzantine, characteristics of 
40 
Central European, 271 
German, 9-10 
merchants ranked as, 
206, 209 
penury of, following break-up 
of feudalism, 241-42; fate 
of greater and lesser (13th 
cent.), 242 
Spanish, 84 
Non-combatants, 
155 
Nonantola, 105 
Norica, 57 
Normandy : 
agriculture encouraged in, 
153; industrial crops, 236 
apple exports from, 235 
forest clearances in, 230 
horse-breeding in, 233 
industries of: iron-mining, 
184; cloth, 187; linen, 188, 
297 
landholding in: allods, 122; 
fee farm, 133; peasant pro- 
-prietors, 241; métayage, 256 
peasant risings in (11th cent.), 
148, 327 
public order and justice es- 
tablished in, 152 
servants’ contracts in, 257-58 
trading associations of, 163 
Normans, African explorations of, 
289 
Norrképing, 275 
North Sea: trade, 
227-28 
Northmen, 115, 272 
Norway: 
fisheries of, developed (14th 
cent.), 274, 317 
kingdom of, founded, 274 
marine activity of, 274-75 
sdtters (sceters), 273, 276 
Norwich, 296 
Notaries, corporations of, 212 
Novalese Abbey, 69 
Novgorod, founding of, 59; fair 
at, 269; German methods 


192, 


protection of, 


177; floods, 


at, 292; colonisation of 
Finnish lands by, 216-17 
Noyen, 194 
Nuremberg: 


capitalists of, 300 
democratic risings in, 217 
floriculture in, 318 


377 


INDEX 


Nuremberg (continued) : militia of, 155; progressive 
industries of, 295 pclicy of (11th to 12th 
printers of (15th cent.), 292, cents.), 154 
prosperity of (15th cent.), 291, | Paper manufacture, 189-90, 293, 

315 297 
State bank of, 288 Papyrus, 111 
Nuts, 235 Parchment, 189-90 
Paris: 

Oats, '75, 274 administration of, 194; decline 

Obrotsi, 271 of democracy, 312 

Odense, 275 artisans’ associations in, 

Odoacer, 16 growth of (11th to 12th 

Offices, hereditary, 84, 120, 140 cents.), 210-11; fraternities 

Oleron, Rolls of, 173 dissolved (13807), 217 

Olives: Roman cultivation of, 4, black death in, 285 

235; rent levy on, 255; commercial depét at, 109 
olive oil trade, 75, 168, 176, famine deaths in: statistics, 
235 284 

Optimates, 84 fashion leader (18th cent.), 189 

Oranges, 235 industries of, 186-89, 297 

Orchards, 69, 75, 235; decay of, Italian merchants and count- 

under barbarians, 26; By- ing houses in, 168, 168, 
zantine, 35; feudal, 129; 289 
burgesses’, 209 merchant corporations of, 286, 

Orleans, 113, 195, 314 804; Council of Elders, 206 

Ornaments, 261 peasant sympathies of (14th 

Orvieto, 195 cent.), 327 . 

Ostmark, 82 population of (12th to 18th 

Ostrogoths, Russian settlements cents.), 203; (14th cent.), 

of, 8; numbers of (2nd to 315 

4th cents.), 9; Hun dis- reorganisation of (887), 113 
placements of, 15; ravages revolutionary temper in (14th 
by (5th to 7th cents.), 16, to 15th cents.), 314 

19; savagery of 22, 23; | wage-rates in, 308 
disappearance of, 18 water merchants of, 164, 206 

Otto I, Emperor, 82 Parisis (silver coins), 165 

Otto II, Emperor, 82 Parma, 167, 211, 290 

Oudenarde, 218 Paroikoi, 265, 271 

Outlaws, 96, 148 ; Passau, 113, 187 

Over-Yssel, 325 Passenger services, 109, 164, 202, 

Oyster beds, 231 284, 287 

Patras, 49, 54 

Padua, 113, 211 Patriciates, urban: monopoly of 

Painting, 157, 223, 297 government exercised by, 

Pain, 194 205, 207; achievements of, 

Palace fortresses, 205 207-8; tyranny of, 208- 

Palezologi, 264, 266 10; tyranny broken in S. 

Palatinate, the, 15, 18 France and Italy (18th 

Palermo, industries of, 186, 188, cent.), 217-19 


189; administration of, 199; | Patronage, 38, 117 

population of, in 12th cent., | Patzinaks (Petcheneges), 5 

203 Paul the Deacon quoted, 238, 24, 
Palma, 287, 315 at 
Pannage and pasture rights, 282 Paula of Nicopolis, 39 


Pannonia, 57 Pauperism, beginnings of problem 
Papacy, crusades organised by, of, 42, 325, 334-35; poor 
160; influence of, 64-65; relief, 64, 263 


lands of, 88, 128; monastic | Pavia, 50, 113, 125, 185, 211 
378 


INDEX 


Pavilly, 187 

Pawnbroking, 167 

Peacocks, 233 

Pearls, 111. 

Peasants: 
Alsatian, 134 
associations of, 247 
bourgeoisie of, 252-53 
burdens imposed on, under 

feudalism. See Feudalism, 


burdens 

characteristics of (14th cent.), 
262 

Church lands, on, privi- 
leged, 45, 98, 185, 187, 
156-57 

communal land appropriated 
by, 240 


conditions of, under feudalism, 
98-100, 144-45, 271; food, 
housing, etc. (14th cent.), 
260-61 

emancipation of, causes of, 
245-46; achievement of, 
246-48 ; administrative and 
political privileges acquired 
by, 250-51; rise of, to 
power, 334 

exploitation of, by feudal 
lords, 142, 151 

feudal warfare, 
under, 152 

German, 121-22 

landholding by: as owners, 
241, 244; as censitaires, 
255, 321, 335 

lowest class of, 322, 325 

mental and moral state of, 
under feudalism, 147; in- 
tellectual development in 
14th cent., 263 

notice required from, on leav- 
ing, 248 

privileges of (10th to 138th 
cents.), 144 

property of, growth of the 
system of, 142 

proportion of, to population, 
245 | 

prosperity of, in 12th to 14th 
cents., 259 

reclamation and colonisation 
effected by, 227, 268 

risings of, 101, 148-49; in 
14th and 15th cents., 826 
seq., 335 

royal protection of, 144, 153, 
281 


sufferings 


Peasants (continued): 
Russian, 271-72 
spade-right of, 184, 253 
towns’ tyranny over, 201, 213; 
Paris sympathetic, 327 
trading rights of, 250 
Peat, 274 
Pedlars, 108, 160-62, 172, 262 
Peit, Jacques, 311 
Penalties, spiritual, 156, 166, 171 
Pencenedl, 79, 84 
Penetes, 42. See also Pauperism 
Pentapolis, the, 57 
Perfume trade, 58, 111 
Périgord, 184-85 
Peruzzi, 168 
Petcheneges (Patzinaks), 5 
Pewter, 296 
Pharmaceutical products, 297 
Pheasants, 233 
Philip Augustus, King of France, 
152, 243 
Philippe le Bel, King of France, 
209, 215, 217, 218 
Phylarchs, 265 
Physicians, corporations of, 212 
Piacenza, 167, 194 
Picardy : 
apples exported from, 235 
cloth industry of, 187 
fisheries of, 231 
forest clearances in, 230 
haricotiers in, 254 
land drainage in, 228 
peasant rising in, 327 
tenant farming in (15th cent.), 
-323 
trading activities of, 
296 
Piedmont, 82, 288, 325 
Pierre de Fontaines cited, 185 
Pig-breeding, 7, 12, 35, 73, 74, 87, 
232-33, 256 
Pilgrimages, 110, 148, 160 
Pilotage, 174; gild monopoly in, 
208 
Piracy, 28, 99, 111, 158, 272; 
Slav, 7, 8, 58, 60; German, 


163, 


18; Scandinavian, 2738; 
efforts to eradicate, 53, 174, 
289, 291 


Pisa: 
coinage of, 165 
democratic success in (1254), 


219 
exclusiveness of, 201 
industrial development of, 


186, 192, 296 


379 


INDEX 


Pisa (continued) : 
merchant bankers of, 167 
navy of, 174 
palaces in, 205 
reorganisation of, 113 
trade rivalry of, 175; Byzan- 
tine trade secured by, 266 


Pisciculture. See Fisheries 
Pistoja, 167, 219 
Pitch, 274 


Place names, 230, 248 
Plague, 146. See also Epidemics 
Ploughshares: iron, introduced, 
234, 274; seizure of, for- 
bidden, 281 
Plums, 235 
Podestats, 213-14 
Poisonings, 101, 148 
Poitiers, 118, 188 ; urban federation 
attempted by (1134), 195; 
artisans’ corporations in, 
211; battle of, 237 
Poitou: 
arms, manufacture of, 135 
drainage of, 228 
fisheries of, 2381 
forest clearances in, 280 
iron-mining in, 184 
salt industry of, 105, 185, 294 
small properties in, 129 
wage-rates in (14th cent.), 259 
Poland: 
black death in, 285 
Church lands in, 270-71 
civilising of, 267-68 
corn-growing, 268, 318; agri- 
cultural development (14th 
to 15th cents.), 316 
crusades as affecting, 160 
democracy in, decline in, 312 
German factories in (15th 
cent.), 291 
mines of, 269 
rural industries of, 298; rural 
conditions in 15th cent., 330 
serfdom in (138th cent.), 271, 


326 
silver-mining and salt industry 
of, 294 
zinc and saltpetre production 
in, 295 
Poles, colonising by, 268; en- 


slavement of prisoners by, 
326 

Police: of feudal lords, 140, 250; 
patriciate’s right of, 211; 
furnished by the masses, 
216 


Polirone Abbey, 69 
Political rights: 
artisans debarred from, 207; 
their acquisition of, 216- 
19, 224 
immigrants debarred from, 
by urban communes, 197 


merchants’. See under 
Merchants 
villeins and peasants ex- 


cluded from, 1388, 1385, 
144; their acquisition of, 
250-51 
Pollentia, battle of, 15 
Pololsk, 269 
Pomegranates, 235 
Pomerania, 274, 825 
Pomposa Abbey, 69 
Pont Saint-Esprit, 164 
Ponthieu, 230 
Pontoise, 210 
Population statistics: low level in 
6th cent., 29-80; increase 
of, from 10th, to 11th cents., 
146-47; from 11th to 14th 
cents., 225-26; 10th and 
13th cents. compared as to, 
237-88; in Elbe and Danube 
lands, 268; European in 
14th cent., 277; increase 
during 15th cent., 331; 
peasant proportion in, 245; 
Scandinavian statistics, 
272-78, 276; black death’s 
effect on, 285 
Porcelain, 50, 107, 157, 282 
Portinari family, 300 
Ports, 193, 202, 203; Roman devel- 
opment of, 4; Byzantine 
maintenance of, 52, 54; 
restoration of, under 
Carolingians, 64; feudal 
tolls on, 140; maintenance 
of, in the West, 174; river, 
287 
Portugal: 
crusades as affecting, 160 
economic policy of (14th to 
15th cents.), 280-81 
perpetual leases in, 254 
salt industry of, 185, 294 
trading activities of (15th 
cent.), 289-90 
wines of (18th cent.), 236 
Post, imperial, disappearance of, 
under the invasions, 28; 
Justinian’s suppression of, 
52; disappearance in the 


380 


INDEX 


West, 110; 
German services in 12th 
and 13th cents., 164; later, 
284, 287 
Potash, 274, 300 
Potentes, 84 
Pottery, 12, 189, 223, 293, 297 
Poultry-raising, 74, 233; rent levy 
on, 256 
Pound tournois, 125 and note 
Pound weight, 110 
Pozzuoli, 184 
Prestai, 265 
Prague, 269, 270, 315 
Precaria: conditions of, 84, 91, 
133-34; free properties 
transformed into, 89 
Premonstratensians, 227, 230, 243 
Prévéts, 199 
Prices: fixation of, attempts at, by 
the State, 47-48, 108, 283; 
by urban governments, 202 ; 
relation of wages to (13th 
cent.), 221-22; food, see 
under Food 
Primates, 265 
Printing, 297-98 
Priors (of corporations), 213 
Prise, feudal right of, 140, 145; 
commuted or limited, 250 
Prisoners: ransom of, 140, 156; bail 
for, 250; enslavement of, 326 
Proceres, 84 
Proconsuls, 2138 
Procopius the Great, 329 
Procuration (hospitality), feudal 
right of, 140, 145, 198; 
commuted or limited, 250 
Production, ownership of means 
of, by artisans, 181; trans- 
ference of, to the great 
industry, 220, 292 seq. 
Professions, aristocratic, corpora- 
tions of, 211-12 
Proletariat : urban, 299, 301, 306, 
310; rural, 325 
Property (see also Capital and 
- land): 
community of: in families, 6 
by villages, 10-11; decrease 
in 7th to 10th cents., 78-79; 
11th to 14th cents., 
Scandinavian, 272; survival 
-.. of, to 15th cent., 121; dis- 
. appearance of, 318- 19, 333 
essential rights of, secured 
by rural Expxeourste, 253, 
334 


240,270; 


Italian and | Property (continued): 


house, value of, 300 

inheritance of. See Inheritance 

movable: villeins’, 143; eccle- 
siastical encouragement of, 
157; use of, 2438; feudal 
attitude to, 159; develop- 
ment of, 177; scarcity of 
(11th to 12th cents.), 274 

private: growth of principle 
of, under Roman and By- 
zantine Empires, 35; among 
Serbo-Croats, 58; in Russia, 
60; spread of, among new 
races, 81; progress checked 
by domain system, 116; 
increase of, in Central 
Europe (13th cent.), 270; 
Seandinavian, 275 

transference of, to barbarians, 
19-20 

use, in, 134 

Prosper of Aquitaine quoted, 23, 

24, 


Provence: 

day labourers in (brassiers), 
138th cent., 257 

drainage in, 228 

feudal power at, broken, 194, 
195 

fruit exports from, 285 

industries of: food, 186; cot- 
ton, 188; sugar, 236 

landholding in: free lease- 
holds, 91; stockleases and 
métayage, 256; tenant farm- 
ing, 323 

popular risings in (18th cent.), 
219 


Saracen invasion of, 115 
trade rivalry. of, 175-76; 
Jewish traders, 109; By- 
zantine trade secured by, 
266 
Visigothic occupation of (462- 
480), 16 
Provins, 171, 187, 217 
Provosts, 206 
Prud hommes, 206, 2138-14 
Priim Abbey, 70, 82, 98, 243 
Pruss populations, 6; German 
methods with, 258, 268 
Prussia: 
Church property in, 243 
civilising of, 267-68 
corn-growing in, 268, 318 
Hanse of, 286 
land reclamation in, 228 


381 


INDEX 


Public peace and order, efforts to 
establish, 152-53 
Pyrenees, 122, 184, 185 


Quentoviec, 111 
Queste, 139 


Racial fusion, 76 
Ragusa, 55, 269 
Raisins, 235 
Ramsay Abbey, 70 
Ransom of prisoners, 140, 156 
Raoul Ardent, 157 
Raoul de Fougére, 149 
Rapondi, Dino, 299 
Rascia (Novibazar), 57, 269 
Ratisbon, 113, 164, 187 
Ravenna, 50, 55; fishermen’s gild 
at, 104; mercantile colony 
in, 109; marshes of, drained. 
229; Schole of, 210 
Rayahs, 326 
Rectors (administrators) of cor- 
porations, 213-14 
Regensburg, 192 
Reggio, 55, 188, 219 
Reichenau Monastery, 70 
Remiremont Abbey, 70 
Rémy, Pierre, 299 
Renaissance of 12th to 18th cents., 
276 
Rennes, 303 
Rent (see also Leases) : 
assarts, from, 121 
canon, 92 
cens. See under Leases 
champarts, 133-34, 140, 249 
common lands, from, 121 
commutation, 255 
fiefs, from, 125 
monastic estates, on, 98 
produce as, 87, 90, 93, 140, 
249 
quit rents. 
cens 
reforms regarding, 249 
rise in (11th to 14th cents.), 


See Leases, a 


239 
tenant farmers’ (14th to 15th 
cents.), 3823. And see 
Agriculture, tenant farm- 
ing 
villeins paying. See Censi- 
taires 
Reprisals, right of, 170, 171; 
restriction of, 173, 288- 


89 


Revolutions of the 12th cent., 
195 

Rewards (administrators), 213- 
uf 

Rheims, 118, 812, 315; Church 
domain in, 68 ; industries of, 
106, 187, 188; insurrection 
in (1144), 195 

Rhinelands: 

agricultural prosperity in (9th 

cent.), 76; wheat exports, 
235; hop gardens, 236; co- 


operative farming, 323; 
tenant farming (15th cent.), 
323 


democratic risings in, 217 
fraternities in, 199 
labour federations in, 305 
landholding in: Church lands, 
124; appreciation in values 
(11th to 14th cents.), 239; 
métayage, 256; land-owning 
general, 320; peasant pro- 
prietors, 321 
merchant shipping of, 290- 
91 
peasant life in, 145; rural 
emancipation, 248; peasant 
proprietors, 321; peasant 
risings (15th cent.), 329 
prosperity of, consequent on 
urban activity, 208 
textile industry of, 183, 296 
trade route to, 176 
vine-growing in, 236 
wage values in (15th cent.), 
330 
Rhodes, laws of, 53 
Riccardi, 168 
Rice, 235, 281 
Richard II, King of England, 282, 
329 
Rienzi, Cola 'di, 310 
Riga, 269, 270, 291; Archbishop 
of, 244 
Rimini, 57 
Roads: 
cross-roads the depdts of 
trade, 161, 170-71 
deterioration of (6th cent.), 
28 
merchants’, 
287 
Roman: extent of, 4; security 
and repair of, by Carolin- 
gians, 64, 110; with Church 
encouragement, 157;in 13th 
cent., 269 


development of, 


382 


INDEX 


Roads (continued) : 
royal and national highways, 
163-64 
royal policy as to (14th and 
15th cents.), 283-84 
Scandinavian, 274 
urban concern for, 208 
Rochelle, 176 
Rodosto, 54 
Roger ITI of Sicily, 152, 188 
Rogers, Thorold, cited, 308 
Rolin, Nicolas, 320 
Romagna, the, 57 
Roman Church. 
Latin 
Roman Empire: 
achievements of, 2, 4, 332 
agricultural science of, 26, 234 
barbarian interpenetration of 
(3rd _cent.), 14; invasions 
by, see under Barbarians 
depopulation in (3rd and 4th 
cents.), 2 
extent and boundaries of (5th 
cent.), 1 
fall of, 1; cause of, 4 (and see 
Barbarians) 
fortresses of, 14 
persistence of order estab- 
lished by, 1, 5, 17-18, 31 
polity of, 2-3 
population of, in 5th cent., 2 
prosperity of, 5 
State workshops in, 3 
subdivisions of, 1 
urban proletariat under, 3 
Roman Empire, Eastern. See 
Byzantine Empire 
Rome: Alaric’s sack of (410), 15; 
decline of (600), 27, 28; 
merchant bankers of, 167; 
Schole of, 210 
Roosebecque, battle of, 311 
Roskild, 275 
Rostok, 302, 312 
Rotharis, 63, 64 
Rotterdam, 290 
Roturiers, 121, 180-31, 1382 
Rouen: 
administration of, 199 
cloth industry of, 187 
Etablissements of, 19 
fair at, 170 
Italian counting houses at, 
289 


See Church, 


riots in (1280-81), 217; revo- | 


lutionary temper in (14th — 
cent.), 314 


Rouen (continued): 
trade of, 111 
water merchants of, 164 
mentioned, 176, 312, 315, 327 
Roumania, prosperity of (12th 
cent.), 266; feudalism in, 
267; rural misery in (14th 
cent.), 326 
Roumanians (Vlachs): ethnic 
origin of, 57; Byzantine 
influence among, 267 
Roussillon: 
agricultural exports of, 234 
drainage and irrigation in, 
. 228-29 
drapery industry of, 187 
forest clearances in, 231 
land appreciation in (11th 
to 14th cents.), 239 
landholding in: rural domains, 
254-56; peasant owners, 
253 
peasant revolt in, 247 | 
population increase in (15th 
cent.), 331 
servants’ wages in, 260 
Royal power: industry and trade 
regulated by, 47-48, 108, 
283; landed possessions of, 
see Domains royal ; peasants 
and artisans supported 
by, 144, 158, 217, 281; 
sound administration organ- 
ised by (from 11th cent.), 
152; national economy or- 
ganised by, 280-81 
| Rudolph of Habsburg, 209 
Rug industry, 188 
| Rugii, disappearance of, 18 
Rural population, classes of, 258 
(and see Peasants) 
_ Russia: 
Byzantine influence on, 60, 
267 
Church lands in, 270-71 
expansion of, eastward, 268 
(18th to 15th cents.), 316 
Genoese trade with, 175-76 
German factories in, 291 
nobility in, feudal, 271 
Obrok in, 189 
| peasant life in (13th cent.), 
| 271-72 
serfdom and slavery in (13th 
cent.), 271 
semi-civilisation of, from 10th 
cent., 60 
Varangian activities in, 59-60 


383 


INDEX 


Russians: tribute levied on, by 
Slavs, 8; Byzantine regu- 
lations regarding, 52; By- 
zantine influence among, 
267 

Rustici, 91 

Rye, 75, 274 


Saddlery, 189 

Sahagan, 195 

Sail-cloth industry, 188 

St. Benézet, 164 

St. Benoit-sur-Loire Abbey, 70 

St. Bernard Hospice, 165 

St. Bertin Abbey, 70, 104 

St. Denis, Fair, 109-11; cloth in- 
dustry, 187; Abbey, 107, 
157, 247 

St. Gall Abbey, 70, 82, 107, 157 

St. Germain-des-Prés Abbey, 74, 
82, 86, 90-91, 93, 96 

St. Gilles, 175 

St. Guilhem du Desert Abbey, 70 

St. Hubert Monastery, 70 

St. Maixent Abbey, 70 

St. Martin of Tours Abbey, 83, 
107, 247 

St. Mesonin Abbey, 70 

St. Omer: merchant gild of, 1638, 
194; cloth industry of, 187; 
land reclamation in, 228 

St. Omer (Sithieu) Monastery, 70, 
104, 105 

St. Peter of Salzburg Monastery, 70 

St. Pierre de Gant Monastery, 70 

St. Quentin: industrial develop- 
ment of, 187, 192, 194; 
revolution at (14th cent.), 
314 

St. Remi Abbey (Rheims), 82 

St. Riquier, 109; Abbey, 70, 104, 
105 

St. Savin Abbey, 157 

St. Trond, 187, 210; Monastery, 70 

St. Vincent of Volterno Abbey, 69 

St. Wandrille Abbey, 70, 83 

Saintonge, 129, 185, 294 

Sala, 85 

Salonica, 50, 815; wealth of, 266; 
revolution and terror in, 
309 

Salt, 59, 261; salt pans, salt springs, 
ete., 105, 185, 269; trade in, 
49, 172, 176, 185, 294; 
improvements in the indus- 
try, 293 

Salt fish, 261 

Salt meat trade, 176 


Saltpetre, 295 
Saltus, 85 
Salvian, Abp., quoted, 22 
Salzburg, small free estates in, 88, 
105, 185; Bishopric of, 82 
San Marino, 122 : 
Sanctuary, right of, 65, 250 
Santiago, Abp. of, 124 
Santiago, ‘*‘ customs” of, 247 
** Saracen corn,”’ 235 
Saracens, 115, 188 
Saragossa, 118, 185, 285 
Sardinia, 106, 184 
Sartores, 227 
Satin, 297 
Sauvetés, 191 
Savoy, 15, 183, 184 
Saxons, 9, 11: 
Britons conquered by, 16, 
21 
Netherland settlements of, 
18 
savagery of, 23 
trade of, 12 
Saxony: 
arms manufacture of, 185 
mining in, 294-95 
non-feudai property 
viving in, 89, 121 
peasant revolts in, 101, 148; 
(15th cent.), 329 
Seali, 168 
Scandinavia: 
artisans’ associations in, 275 
black death in, 285 
commons in, 319 
crusades as affecting, 160 
development of, 272 seq. 
ecclesiastical property in, 319 
English trade with, 290 
German factories in, 291 
Gothic conquests in, 8 
metallurgy in, 295 
peasant conditions in (138th 
cent.), 276 
Scandinavians: Slavs conquered 
by, 59; ** Varangian’’ name 
adopted by, 59; invasions 
by (9th to 10th cents:), 115; 
characteristics of, 273 
Scents, trade in, 53, 111 
Schole, 210 
Schools, 65, 208; artisans’ interest 
in, 223; peasants’ interest, 
263 
Schwartz mines, 294 
Science, French supremacy in 
189-90 


sur- 


384 


INDEX 


Scotland: 

Celts enslaved in, 258 

fisheries of, developed, 317 

Northmen’s invasion of, 115 

poverty of (14th cent.), 316 

rural industries of, 293; con- 
ditions-in 15th cent., 3380 

tribal property in, survival of, 
78 


wasteland in, 72 

Scots trading abroad, 171 

Sculpture, 107, 223, 297; monastic 
instruction in, 157; French 
supremacy in, 189 

Sea biscuits, 186 

Sea charts and sea pilotage, 174 

Seal-hunting, 317 

Sebastades, 265 

Secret associations, 101 

Seebohm cited, 90 

Seigniorial régime, 85 (and_ see 
Feudallords and Feudalism) 

Seine or Marne, battle of (851), 16 

Selymbria, 54 

Senegal, 289 

Sentores, 84: 

Senlis, 187, 327 

Sens, 195, 314 

Septimania (Lower Languedoc), 68 
(and see Languedoc) 

Sequins (gold coins), 165 

Serbia: mines of, 269; serfdom in 
(13th cent.), 271; rural 
misery in (14th cent.), 326 

Serbian Empire, 269 

Serbs: invasions by, 6; Byzantine 
culture of, 57-58, 267 

Sereone, 103 

Serfdom: 

- abolition of, causes of, 245-46 
artisans’ reduction to, 104 
Byzantine peasants’ reduction 

to, 42, 265 
Central Europe, 

cent.), 271 
characteristics of, 44, 139 


in (138th 


Denmark, in (15th cent.), 
330 

prevalence of, in the West, 
95 


recrudescence of (14th cent.), 
258, 322, 326-26, 335 

substitution of, for slavery, 
117, 332 

suppression of, attempted: by 
the State, 153, 281; by the 
Church, 157 

survivals of, 197, 258 


Serfs: 
agricultural, 
Germans, 10 
assimilation of, to slave class, 
21 
burdens ointeed on, 189-40 
capture rights over escaped, 
138 
Carolingian protection of, 64 
categories of, 1387 
civilrights granted to, by town 
communities, 197 
colonit merged with, 44 
development of, into artisans, 
224-25 
discontent general among, 101 
domestic, 137 
hard lot of, 147-48, 258 
inheritance by, 189 
oblates, 137 
peasants synonymous 
(7th to 10th cents.), 95 
preponderance of (10th to 12th 
cents.), 136 
price of, 147 
privileged classes of, 185, 187 
recruitment of, 186-37 
seigniorial domains, on, 86 
status of, 137-39 
value of, determined by skill, 
103 
Serfs of the glebe, 44, 95-97, 258 
Serge, 187, 188 
Servants, 10, 187; wage rates of 
(14th cent.), 260 
Seville, 118, 170, 188, 189 
Shallots, 335 
Sheep-breeding, 35, 39, 74, 282; 
présalé, 2338; development 
of (14th cent.), 317 
Sheriffs, 199 
Ship-building, 28, 189 
Ships, trading, 111, 174, 193 
Shops, 109, 162, 192, 214 
Sicilies, the two: 
agriculture encouraged in, 153 
Anglo-Norman rule in, con- 
ditions under, 196 
coinage of, 154, 165 
deforestation of, 231 
ecclesiastical property in, 319 
feudalism-in, 120, 125 
free properties in, 122, 129 
Jews and Moslems in, con- 
ditions of (18th cent.), 258 
kings of (from 11th cent.), 
sound administration or- 
ganised by, 152 


among the 


with 


385 2c 


INDEX 


Sicilies (continued) : 
leather industry of, 189 
Norman kings of, wealth of, 
125 
peasant revolt in, 247 
populationof (18th cent.), 237 ; 
(15th cent.), 331 
prosperity of, consequent on 
urban activities, 202-3 
revolutionary temper in, 310 
roads in, national, 164 
rural emancipation in, 248 
salt industry of, 185 
State property in, accretions 
to, 242 
Sicily: 
Byzantine restoration of, 57 
compass improved by sailors 
of, 174 
crusades as affecting, 160 
industrial crops of, 236 
iron-mining in, 184 
irrigation in, 229 
rice and sugar cultivation in, 
235 
slave labour in, 326 
wheat exported from, 235 
Siena: trading activity of, 163; 
merchants and bankers of, 
167, 168, 288; industries of, 
186, 296-97; democratic 
success in (1283), 219; 
destitution of nobles (13th 
cent.), 242; revolutionary 
temper in (14th cent.), 310 
Silesia: metallurgy in, 269; black 
death in, 285; textile 
industry of, 296; peasant 
risings in, 329 
Silk: trade in, 47, 58, 168, 172, 
300; industry, 183, 188, 
296-97; trade in silken 
goods, 58, 111,168,172, 300 
Silk-worm culture, 35, 236 
Silver, cloth of, 296 
Silver-mining, 269, 294 
Silver work, 49-50 
‘Simeon Ampelas, 39 
Sithieu. See St. Omer 
Skaania, 275-76 
Skin and fur trade, 110, 172, 176, 
177, 189, 300 
Skins as money, 8 
Slavery: 
barbarian restoration of, 21- 
22,115 
Byzantine Emperors’ policy 
regarding, 43 


Slavery (continued): 

Christianity in opposition to 
95, 271, 276 

disappearance of, under 
Roman Empire, 3, 21-22; 
under Byzantine Empire, 
61, 116, 882; towards end 
of Dark Ages, 98-95 

prisoners reduced to, 326 

revived by war and com- 
merce (12th to 14th cents.), 
259 

serfdom substituted for, 117, 
136, 332 

Slav custom of, 7 

survival and reappearance of, 
258, 271 

Slaves: 

Byzantine trade in, 53 

conditions of, 94; 
Germans, 10, 21 

emancipation of, for colon- 
isation, 33 

Jew dealers in, 109 

markets for, 93 

prices of, 74, 93-94 

serfs, transformations 
136 

trade in, 110; recrudescence of 
(14th cent.), 326 

villeins contrasted with, 142 

Slavs: 

Byzantine and Western in- 
fluences among, 18, 57, 
267 

characteristics of, 8 

Danish colonists among, 274 

distribution of, 5-6 | 

German colonies of, 68; their 
enslavement, 258 

institutions of, 6-8 

prisoners from, established 
as colonists, 33 

ravages by (5th to 7th cents.), 
16 


under 


to; 


savagery of, 23, 26 
Slesvig, 228 
Slovaks, 267 
Slovenes, 57 
Slovenia, 33, 267-68, 271 
Sluys, 111, 176 
Smiths, 106 
Smolensk, 8, 59 
Smurdes, 258, 271 
Soap, 300 
Socagers, 253 
Socmanni liberi, 91 
Soissonnais, 236 


386 


SE 


INDEX 


Soissons, 105, 113, 314; peasant | Spain, landholding in (continued): 


rising in, 327 
Soissons, Bishop of, 247 
Sollignac Abbey, 70, 103, 107 
Soudan, commercial penetration 
of, 289 | 
Sous (gold), 165 
Spade-right, 184, 253 
Spain: 
African explorations of, 289 
agricultural improvements in, 
74; prosperity in 9th cent., 
76; exports, 234, 2385; 
industrial crops, 286; pro- 
gress in 14th cent., 316; 
co-operative farming, 323 
Arab invasion of, its results, 69 
art in, 107 
Bagaude in_ resistance to 
barbarians, 25 
barbarian atrocities in, 23 
black death in, 285 
Christian and Moslem Spain 
contrasted, 230 
commons in, 319 
crusades as affecting, 160 
day labourers in, 259 
economic policy of (14th to 
15th cents.), 280-81 
fairs in, 287; their prosperity 
in 15th cent., 287 
feudalism in, 85, 120, 125, 128 
food industries of, 186 
forests in, 73; clearances, 317 
free communities in the north, 
122 
German invasions of, in 5th 
cent., 15 
horse-breeding in, 233 
industrial risings in (14th 
cent.), 312 
industries of: arms, 185; salt, 
185, 294; silk, 188, 297; 
mosaic and potteries, 189; 
mercury, 295; metallurgy, 
295; industrial activity of 
15th cent., 294 
irrigation works in, 229 
Jews in, conditions of, in 13th 
cent., 258; in 15th cent., 
325 
labour laws in (14th to 15th 


132-33; accretions to State 
property, 242; peasant 
Owners, 252-53; private 
estates, 319-20 

loans on bottomry in, 109 

market gardening and horti- 
culture in, 235 

mercantile colonies in, 109 

merchants’ revolt in (12th 
cent.), 195 

mining in, 184 

Moslem serfs in (18th cent.) , 
258, 325 

Mozarabs, 231 

nobility in, under feudalism, 
128; their fate in 13th cent., 
242 

population of, increase in: 10th 
to 18th cents., 287; 15th 
cent., 331 

prosperity of: under Roman 
Empire, 4; consequent on 
urban activities, 203 

royal support for democratic 
aspirations in, 217; efforts 
against serfdom, 281 

rural charters in, 247-48; rural 
communes, 251; peasant 
owners, 252-53; peasant 
risings (14th to 15th cents.), 
327 ; rural conditions in 15th 
cent., 330 

serfs in, 136, 281 

sheep-farming in, 233; the 
Mesta, 318 

slavery revived in (12th to 
14th cents.),259 ; slave trade 
(14th cent.), 326 

sworn corporations in, 303 

towns destroyed in, 27; urban 
revival, 118; type of town 
administration in, 199 

trading activities of, in 15th 
cent., 289-90 

Visigoths established in, 15 

wage rises in, 307 

wastelands of, 226; reclama- 
tions, 230-31 

water-mills in Visigothic 
Spain, 105 

wine trade in, 75, 236 


cents.), 8324 Speculation, capitalist introduc- 


landholding in: non-feudal 


tion of, 300 


properties surviving, 121; | Speier, 113, 192, 195, 315 
Behetrias, 122; Realengos, | Spelt, 75 

125; Tenencias, 126; tenant | Spices, 58, 109, 111, 162, 168, 172 
holders, 181; free villeins, | Spinach, 235 


387 


INDEX 


Spoleto, 18, 55 
Sponges, 231 
Stamford, 188 
Staple, merchants of the, 168; 
right of staple, 202 
State, idea of the, restoration of. 
under Charlemagne (800), 
63 
Stavelot Monastery, 70 
Stettin, 291, 312 
Stilicho, 15 
Stockholm, 275 
Stoicism, influence of, 2, 3 
Stone for architecture, 155, 294 
Stone houses, 205, 209 
Stones, precious, 184 
Stourbridge fair, 170 
Strangers, towns’ differentiation 
against, 201 
Strasburg, 1138, 315: 
artisans’ associations, growth 
of (11th to 12th cents.), 210, 
211 
black death in, 285 
carrying trade of, 290-91 
democratic risings in, 
312 
industrialdevelopmentof,192 ; 
woollen industry, 187 
State bank of, 288 
wages in, 221 
Stratford bridge, 164 
Stratistes, 265 
Straw, Jack, 328 
Strikes, 209, 217; general strike 
at Bologna, 219 
See Horse-breeding 


217, 


Studs. 
Styria: 
arms manufacture of, 185 

blast furnaces, 293 
colonisation of (8th cent.), 
68 
iron-mining in, 184 
peasant risings in (15th cent.), 
329 
serfdom in (14th cent.), 325 
Subiaco Abbey, 69 
Succession. See Inheritance 
Suevi, 15, 18, 25, 27 
Sugar cane cultivation, 35, 236; 
honey as substitute for 
sugar, 74, 233, 261; sugar 
trade, 68, 172 ; Western 
sugar manufactories, 186 
Sulphate-mining, 295 
Surgeons, sworn, 262 
Sussex, iron-mining in, 184 
Swabia, 70, 121, 185 


A 


Sweden: 
Bodas, 2°78 
colonisation by, 274 
land tenure in, 272 
peasants’ successes in (15th 
cent.), 329-30 
poverty of (14th cent.), 316 
silver and copper mining in, 
294-95 
Switzerland: 
Burgundy established in (434- 
531), 16 
community property surviving 
in, 121 
fairs in, prosperity of, in 15th 
cent., 287 
forest clearances in, 229-30 
non-feudal property surviving 
in, 121 
rural charters in (11th to 13th 
cents.), 24'7-48,; rural com- 
munes, 251 
silk industry of, 297 
vine-growing in, 235 
wasteland in, 72 
Sword Brethren, Brotherhood of, 
243 
Syndicalist revolutions, 194, 196, 
309 
Syria, 160, 168 
Syrian merchants, 52, 538, 109 
Syrups, 186, 297 


Taborites, 329 
Teog, 92 
Taille, 139 
Tallage, 93, 186, 155, 249 
Tallow trade, 172, 176, 177, 234 
Tana, 175 
Tapestry, 49, 157, 188, 297 
Tar trade, 177, 274, 300 
Taris, 165 
Tarragon, 235 
Tartar lands, 316-17 
Tattooing, 13 
Taxation, exemption from: of 
Eastern Church, 265; of 
rural classes (temporarily), 
281 
Taxes: 
alienation, for (lods et ventes), 
134 
charges commuted into, 249 
chevage, 92 
domicile, on change of, 248 
heaviest, on working classes, 
216 


388 


INDEX 


Taxes (continued): 
land (champart), 92-93, 134, 
249 


mainmorte (succession tax). 
See that heading 
mortaille (succession dues), 134 
multiplication of, under feu- 
dalism, 145 
poll, 92, 249, 265, 271 
urban, 208 
Teazles, 236 
Tegernsee Abbey, 82 
Templars: financial operations of, 
167, 168; land reclamation 
by, 228, 230; status of, 243 
Tenant-farming. See under Agri- 
culture 
Terra Nuova, discovery of, 289 
Terrage, 92, 249 
Teutonic Knights, Order of, 248, 
316 
Teutons, subdivisions of, 9 
Textile industry: 
** bayes and sayes,”’ 296 
bourgeois capitalists in, 300 
Byzantine, 47-49; foreign 
goods, 53 
cloth. See that heading and 
under Woollen 
Italian, 296 
linen. See that heading 
rural, 293 
skill in, 180 
Slav, 7 
Theodoric the Great, 16, 63, 64, 67, 
110 
Theodulf, 69 
Thessalonica, 54, 56 
Thourout fair, 111 
Thrace: prosperity of, under Ro- 
man Empire, 4; barbarian 
ravages of, 16; heretical 
colonies in, 338; feudal 
domains in, 265 
Thuringia: Slav colonies in, 68; 
royal domains in, 82; non- 
feudal property surviving 
in, 121 
Thuringians, 9, 12 
Timber, 35; industry, 168, 177, 
232, 274 
Tin, trade in, 176 
Tin-mining, 105, 269, 295 
Toledo, 113, 185, 189; Abp. of, 244 
Tolls, 109, 110; feudal, 140; gild 
monopoly in, 208; royal 
control of, 281, 284 
Toparchs, 265 


Tortosa, usages of, 173 
Torture, 20, 22, 152 
Toul, 118 
Toulouse, 113, 187, 195; enfran- 
chisement of serfs in district 
of, 246; serfdom persisting, 
258 
Touraine, 91, 235 
Tournai: stone quarries of, 185; 
insurrections in, 195, 217- 
18, 314; sworn corporations 
of, 303 
Tournois (silver coins), 165; pound 
tournois, 125 and note 
Tours, 1138, 164, 303 
Town life, renaissance of (10th 
cent.), 118, 191; vigorous 
development of, 197 
Towns: 
administration of, 114; forms 
of, 199; character and 
achievements of, 200-4; 
knights’ seizure of, 205; 
monopoly of, exercised by 
Patriciate. See Patriciate 
admission to, right of (droit 
@accueuil), 197 
aspect of (10th cent.), 114 
barbarian destruction of, 26 
Bulgaria not developing, 59 
charitable institutions in, 203, 
208 
charters of privilege granted 
to, 199 
class war in, 334 
colonisation promoted by, 227 
commerce in markets of, 161- 
62 
crosses of, 199 
cultural development of (14th 
to 15th cents.), 515 
decay of urban communes, 
279-80 
democratic governments of, 
faults and failings of, 312- 
13 
domain a rival to, 1138-14; 
domains acquired by, 244 
Eastern European, 270 
economic interests supreme in, 
200-2; economic rivalries 
of (14th cent.), 313 
emulation among, 203 
faction fights in, 205, 219 
free (villes de consulats), 199 
hereditary officesin, 207 __ 
industrial development in, 
180 


389 


INDEX 


Towns (continued) : 


industries characteristic of, 
293 

insurrections in (12th cent.), 
195 

** new,” 191, 248 

peace, the town, 198 

peasants in subjection to, 313 

policy of, 201 

population of: constant in- 
crease of, 202-8; alertness 
of, 308-9 

proletariats of, 299, 301, 306, 
310 

rank of, in the feudal world, 
191, 207 

renaissance of, following in- 
dustrial revival, 112-18, 191 

Roman Empire, in, 2; re- 
building of Roman cities 
(10th to 14th cents.), 191 

royal policy regarding, 280; 
princely control of, 313 

security within, 198 

size of, average (10th cent.), 
114 

social, literary and artistic 
activities of, 203 

suzerains over, 199 


Townships,early,common property 


of, 79 


Trade (see also Industry): 


agriculture stimulated by 
expansion of, 177 

Bills of Exchange, 52, 168, 
172, 288 

buildings of: bourses, etc., 287 

Byzantine, 35, 48-50; Govern- 
ment monopoly, 50; re- 
strictions, 50-51; transfer- 
ence of, to the West, 266 

carrying, 168 

Central Europe, in, develop- 
ment of, 268 

clearance: payments by, 167, 
168; transfers by, 173 

countries pre-eminent in, 286 

crusades a stimulus to, 160-61 

dangers of, 8,13, 28 

diplomatic representatives of, 
287 

double entry, 287 

exports: restriction of, 108; 
gilds’ tyranny regarding, 208 

federations of trades, 303 

feudalism inimical to, 159, 192 

foodstuffs the only matter of 
(6th cent.), 28 


Tra 


390 


de (continued): 
foreigners, competition of, 
restricted, 215 
freedom of, secured by arti- 
sans, 218 
German tribes, of, 12 
great commerce, scope of the, 
287 seq. 
honesty of, safeguarded, 215 
insurance in, 168, 193 
international: beginnings of, 
in the West, 109, 111, 117; 
organisation of, 162 seq.; 
development of, from 13th 
cent., 177, 182-88; growth 
of (14th to 15th cents.), 286; 
effects of its growth, 384 
labour conditions as affected 
by development of, 177-78 
law and justice of, special, 287 
Levant, with the, 108, 111, 
112, 290, 297 
luxury trades, 47-48, 157, 160, 
162; preponderance of, in 
Dark Ages, 106, 108, 111 
manuals on, 287 
maritime, 111, 178, 288-89 
money, in, 288 (see also 
Bankers and Banking) 
monopolies in, urban efforts to 
prevent, 202; patricians’ 
arrogation of, 208 
regulations for, 162 
retail, gilds’ tyranny regard- 
ing, 208 
Roman Church’s encourage- 
ment of, 65-66 


Roman Empire’s_ develop- 
ment of, 4 
routes of: Byzantine, 50; 


chief European, 164, 171, 
176 

Scandinavian (12th cent.), 
274-75 

speculation, urban efforts to 
prevent, 202 

State interference with, 50- 
51, 108 

towns’ policy to develop, 202 

trade marks, 215, 287 

treaties, commercial, 1'74, 284, 
287, 291 

Western revival of (7th to 9th 
cents.), 64, 107 seq.; (11th 
to 14th cents.), 276-77 

wholesale: conduct of, 108- 
9; development of, 162; 
by Italians, 168 


INDEX 


Trade Unions, 211. Seealso under 
Artisans—Corporations and 
Free crafts 
Tramps, 306-7, 325 
Trani, customs of, 53, 173 
Transport: 
badness of, in Carolingian 
period, 110 

Byzantine, 50, 52 

Church’s aid to development 
of, 157, 164 

companies managing, 
287 

decline of (5th cent.), 28 

gilds’ monopolies of, 208 

improvements in, 165 

inadequacy of, under 
dalism, 159 

Lombard restoration of, 
168 

pack, 7, 75, 110, 164 

passenger, 109, 164, 202, 284, 
287 

river, 110, 157, 269, 284, 287; 
under Roman Empire, 4; 
development of, by Hanses, 
164; merchants’ organisa- 
tion of, 192 

State efforts to improve, 64, 
153, 163 

town monopolies of, 202 

vessels of, 111, 174, 193 

Transylvania: 

Byzantine influence in, 57 
civilising of, 267-68 
gold-mining in, 294 
salt industry of, 269, 294 
serfdom enforced on peasants 

in, 326; peasant risings, 
329 
Trappists, 227 
Trefs, 98 
Treier, 


284, 


feu- 


113, 3815; Alamannian 
atrocities at, 23; linen 
industry of, 106; insurrec- 
tion in, 195; artisans’ cor- 
porations in, 211; métayage 
in country round, 256 
Treier, Archbishop of, 243-44 
Tribal communities: Slav, 6; 

German, 9 
Tributarti, 21 
Trondhjem, 275 
Troyes, 110, 171, 187, 314 
Truce of God, 155 
Truck system, 220 
Tuns, 98 
Turanians, 238, 33, 58 


Turks, Macedonian settlements of, 
33 
Tuscany : 
agricultural progress in (14th 
cent.), 316 
alum production in, 295 
arti of. See under Florence 
city fraternities of, 200 
feudal power broken at, 
195 
free proprietors in, 122 
irrigation in, 229 
merchant bankers of, 168 
mezzadria (métayage) in, 256, 
323 
mining in, 184 
noble estates in, 127-28 
oil exported from, 235 
produce payments in, 255 
rural emancipation in, 248 
slave labour in, 326 
wage rates in (13th cent.), 
259 
wage slavery in, 220 
Tyler, Wat, 328 
Typhus, 284 
Tyrol, 121, 294 


Ubeda, 217 

Udvornici, 271 

Ulm, 217, 291, 297 

Unemployment, security 
220-21 

Universities: founding of, 156; 
artisans’ children sent to, 
223 

Usury, 51, 283; Church’s opposi- 
tion, to, 158, 166 


from, 


Vagabonds, 96, 101, 148 
Valencia: 
bourse of, 287 
bridge at, 164 
democratic success in, 312 
industries of: arms, 185; brass 
and copper work, 185; 
drapery, 187; silk, 188, 297; 
cotton, 188-89; leather, 
189; pottery, 297 
irrigation in, 229 
trading activities of, 290 
mentioned, 113, 189, 315 
Valenciennes, 187, 192 ; 
Valois kings’ landed possessions, 
319 
van Artevelde, James and Philip, 
311 


e 


391 


INDEX 


Vandals, 9; invasions by (406), 15; 
(430-55), 16; disappearance 
of, 18; spoliation by, 24, 
27 
Varangians, 8, 53, 59 
Vascongades, 231 
Vassalage, 119, 120, 122 
Vaudois, 224 
Vavasours, 122 
Veedores, 213-14 
Vegetable: fuel, 185, 232, 293; 
manures, 234; cultivation, 
235 
Velvet, 297 
Venetia: Byzantine restoration of, 
57; slave labour in, 326 
Vengeance, Church’s restriction of 
right of, 65 
Venice: 
black death in, 285 
bourse of, 287 
Byzantine trade secured by, 
268 
capitalists of, 299 
coinage of, 165 
Danube trade route from, 176 
dockyard at, 1'74 
Doges of, 192-94 
ecclesiastical property in (15th 
cent.), 319 
exclusiveness of, 201 
fair at, 170 
Genoese rivalry with, 266 
house property in, value of, 
300 
industrial development of, 192 
industries of: arms, 185; tex- 
tile, 296; silk, 183, 188, 296- 
97; cloth, 186; fustian, linen, 
tapestry, 297; glasswork, 
189, 297; leather, 189; 
gilded leather work, 297 
merchant bankers of, 167 
merchants from, privileged in 
Byzantium, 52, 109 
navy of, 174, 289 
patriciate of, 192, 205 
population of (12th to 13th 
cents.), 208; (14th cent.), 
815 
prostitutes of, 308 
rise of, 55, 175-76 
State bank of, 288 
sworn corporations in, 303 
trade of (15th cent.), 289 
Verdun, 109, 118, 312 
Vernaculi, 187 
Vernon, 187 


Verona, 113, 186 
Verriéres, demesne at, 86-87 
Vestments, 48 
Veterinary art, 232 
Vézelay, 195, 247 
Viacenza, 194 
Vicars (administrators) of cor- 
porations, 213-14 
Vich ironworks, 185 
Vict (townships): in Roman 
Empire, 2; refuges for small 
cultivators, 26; artisans 
living in, 104; decline of, 
80, 99 
Vicini, 114 
Vicinia, 100 
Vienna: trade route to, 176; black 
death in, 285; crafts in 
(15th cent.), 302; sworn 
corporations in, 303; golden 
age of, 315 
Vienne, 113 
Villach, 284 
Ville: in Roman Empire (15th 
cent.), 2; supersession of, 
by village communities, 19, 
129; of Charlemagne, 64; 
organisation of, 85 ; industry 
on, 103; urban centres at, 
112; villeins called after, 
132; development of, inte 
towns, 191 
Village communities: German, 6, 
10-11; barbarian policy 
regarding, 19; organisation 
of, 79; alienations by, 80; 
in feudal times, 129 
Villard de Honnecourt, 186 
Villehardouin quoted, 54, 266 
Villeinage: characteristics of free, 
133; survivals of, 197; 
nature of, 271; in Denmark 
(15th cent.), 330 
Villeins: 
agricultural backwardness of, 
140-41 
censitaires, 253 
charters of, 247 
civil rights granted to, by 
town communities, 197 
classes of, two, 132 
conditions of life of, 145-46 
emancipation of: causes of, 
245; aspects of, 248-50 
encroachments against, 322 
food of (14th cent.), 261 
forerunners of, 3, 90 
growth of the class, 91-92 


392 


INDEX 


Villeins (continued) : 
habits of, 262 
holdings of, size of, 141 
inheritance by, 134, 142 
name, origin of, 132 
reduction of, to serfdom, 826 
servile (villeins in gross), 187 
slaves contrasted with, 142 
Status of, 142 
tenure by, two categories of, 
134 
Villes de consulat, 199 
Villes franches, villes neuves, 191 
Vineyards, 141, 266, 268; Roman 
cultivation of, 4; barbarian 
lack of, 12; their seizure 
of Roman, 19; their des- 
truction of (6th cent.), 25, 
26; Byzantine, 34; monastic, 
69 ; revival of, 75; in feudal 
demesnes, 180; widespread 
development of, 235-36; 
wage-rates in, 259 
Vinogradoff cited, 79 
Visigoths: Russian settlements of, 
8; settlements of, in Gaul 
' and Spain (5th cent.),15, 16; 
aristocratic organisation of, 
18; spoliation by, 19, 24, 
27; savagery of, 22; resist- 
ance to, in Spain, 25; 
conversion of, 65; trade 
regulations of, 108, ‘109 
Vitry-en-Auxerrois demesne, 87 
Viverais, 184 
Vizcaya, 122 
Vlachs. See Roumanians 
Volosts, 6 
Volterra, 184 
Vosges district, 73, 230 
Vralislav. See Breslau 


Wace cited, 148 
Wage-earners: urban, creation of 
the class, 299, 801, 334; 
exclusion of, from civic 
body, 219, 220; rural, see 
under Agriculture 
Wages: 
apprentices’, 221 
famine, 220 
fixation of, 202, 209, 283, 324, 
328; attempts to fix maxi- 
mum, 47 
rates of, in 13th cent., 259 
ratios of, in 14th cent., 221 
real, value of, 221 


Wages (continued) : 
rise in, after black death, etc., 
305, 307; in 15th cent., 330 
stability of, in 14th cent., 
221 
truck as, 306 
value of, in 15th cent., 330 
women’s, 221 
Waif, right of, 160 
Wales, Celts enslaved in, 258; 
conversion of, 65; monas- 
teries in, 69 ; tradewith,111; 
trade insignificant in, 112; 
survival of tribal property 
in, 78; wasteland in, 72 
Wall paintings, 189 
Wallachia, 319 
Walloons, 18 
Wardens, 213-14 
Warehouses, 183 
Warren, rights of: seigniorial, 140, 
145; peasants’, 250 
Warsaw, founding of, 270 
Wasteland: 
extent of, 72; in 11th cent., 
226 
growth of, under barbarians, 
25 
reclamation of: Byzantine, 34; 
by the Church, 65, 1238; 
State’s encouragement of, 
67-68, 1538; privileges 
attaching to, 70-71, 80, 
81, 90, 91, 120; co-opera- 
tion in, 100; in Spain, 
231; transference of land- 
ownership resulting from, 
244-45; by the bourgeoisie, 
3820 
survival of, as 
property, 240 
Water power, 180, 186, 293 
Wateringues, 228 
Waters, royal protection of, 281 
Wax, 282, 233; trade in, 162, 176; 
candles, 74 
Wehelur, wchechelver, 79, 83 
Weaving, in Roman Empire, 4 
(and see Textile) 
Weights and measures: 
gild monopoly in, 208 
Roman, 110 
unification of, attempted, 154; 
achieved, 250; hie policy 
as to, 288 
Welf family, 83 
Western Church. 
Latin 


communal 


See Church, 


393 


INDEX 


Western Empire. See Roman 
Empire 
Westphalia, iron-mining in, 184, 
185, 296; wage-rates in 
(15th cent.), 308 
Whales, 317 
Wheat production. 
growing 
White Sea, 274 
Wild beasts, 232, 280 
William the Conqueror, 152 
Wills, 81, 270 
Winchester, 112 
Wind power, 180, 186 
Wine: 
burgesses’ 
209 
Byzantine, 35, 53 
French, etc., supplementing 
Greek, 236 
rent levy on, 255 
Roman trade in, 12 
trade in, 162, 168, 172, 176; 
widespread in 9th cent., '75 
working class consumption 
of, 222; peasants’, 262 
Winfrith (Boniface), 70 
Wisby, 275; ordinances of, 173 
Wissenburg Monastery, 70 
Woad, 76 
Wolves, 72 
Women: 
aristocratic Byzantine land- 
owners, 39 
atrocities perpetrated on, in 
feudal warfare, 152 
cheap labour by, men pro- 
tected from, 216, 221 
Church’s influence on status 
of, 65 
emancipation of, a Taborite 
tenet, 329 
harlots and prostitutes, 173, 
303, 308 
inheritance rights of, 270, 
275; withheld, 272 
labour federations open to, 
305 
peasant, 97; adornments of, 
261; status of (14th cent.), 
262 
servant girls, 257-58 
wages of, 221; in 13th cent., 
259 
Wood, trade in, 162 
Wood carvers, 223 
Wood cutters, wage-rates 
259 


See Corn- 


consumption of, 


of, 


Wool: German, 12; Frisian, 106; 
trade in, 162, 163, 168, 172, 
176; French and English, 
233; speculation in, 3800; 
large-scale production of, 
317-18 
Woollen industry: Byzantine, 49, 
53; trade in woollen goods, 
168, 172; subdivisions in, 
182; international centres 
of, 183. See Cloth 
Work, insistence on obligation to, 
65; regulation of hours of, 
209; right to, recognised, 
216 
Working classes (see also Arti- 
sans, Peasants, and Wage- 
earners) : 
characteristics. of (11th to 
14th cents.), 228; in 14th 
cent., 262 
Church’s attitude to, 155-57 
democratic movement, rise of, 
216-17; increasing powers 
of, 298 
moral condition of, 223 
position of, under feudalism, 
131 
protection of, not secured by 
feudalism, 150, 159 
servile status of (10th to 12th 
cents.), 136 
trade expansion as affecting, 
177-78 
Workshops: 
increase of, under trade 
expansion, 177, 181 
metal, 185 
monastic, 65 
rural, on large estates, 46 
seigniorial, male and female, 
103 
town, 46-48, 104 
Worms, 113, 192, 195 
Worsted trade, 183 
Wreck, right of, 160; abolition cf, 
173 
Wreckage, 158 
Wurzburg, 113 


York, 285 
Yorkist kings’ landed possessions 
319 
Ypres: 
democratic successes at, 218, 
311 
Echevins of, 321 
fair at, 170 


394 


ternational trade centre, 


‘population of, 208; in 14th 
-cent., 315 

ag at, 206 

**small”’ industry in (15th 
—cent.), 302 

ee of, 186 

woollen industry of (12th 
-cent.), 183, 187 


ve INDEX 


Yugo-Slavs, 6 
Yves de Chartres, 157, 194 
Yvetot, kingdom of, 122 


Zadrugas, 6, 58 

Zeeland, 122-23, 273 

Ziska, 329 

Zunfte. See Artisans’ 
tions 

Zurich, 188, 297 

Zuyder Zee, 227, 316 


corpora- 


THE HISTORY OF 
CIVILIZATION 


A COMPLETE HISTORY OF MANKIND FROM 
PREHISTORIC TIMES TO THE PRESENT 
DAY IN UPWARDS OF 200 VOLUMES 
DESIGNED TO FORM A COMPLETE 
LIBRARY OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION 


Editor: C, K. OGDEN, of Magdalene College, Cambridge 
Consulting American Editor: Professor HARRY ELMER BARNES. 


A, PRE-HISTORY AND ANTIQUITY 


I Inrropuction anp Pre-History 
*Social Organization 
The Earth Before History 
Prehistoric Man 
*The Dawn of European Civilization 
A Linguistic Introduction to History 
A Geographical Introduction to History 
Race and History 
*The Aryans 
From Tribe to Empire 
*Woman’s Place in Simple Societies 
*Cycles in History 
*The Diffusion of Culture 
*The Migration of Symbols 


I] Tue Earry Empires 
The Nile and Egyptian Civilization 
*Colour Symbolism of Ancient Egypt 
The Mesopotamian Civilization 
The Aigean Civilization 


III Greece 
The Formation of the Greek People 
*Ancient Greece at Work 


The Religious Thought of Greece 


W. H.R. Rivers 
E. Perrier 

JF. de Morgan 

V. Gordon Childe 
F. Vendryes 

L. Febvre 

E. Pittard 

V. Gordon Childe 
A. Moret 

F. L. Myers 

F. L. Myers 

G. Elliot Smith 
D. A. Mackenzie 


A. Moret 

D. A. Mackenzie 
L. Delaporte 

G. Glotz 


A. Fardé 
G. Glotz 
C. Sourdtlle 


The Art of Greece W. Deonna and A. de Ridder 


Greek Thought and the Scientific Spirit 
The Greek City and its Institutions 
Macedonian Imperialism 


L. Robin 
G. Glotz 
P. Fouguet 


* An asterisk denotes that the volume does not form part of the French collection, 


L’ Evolution del’ Humanité. 


IV Rome | 
Ancient Italy L. Homo 


The Roman Spirit in Religion, Thought, and Art A. Gremter 
Roman Political Institutions L. Homo 
Rome the Law-Giver F. Declareuil 
Ancient Economic Organization F. Toutain 
The Roman Empire V. Chapot 
*Ancient Rome at Work P. Louts 
The Celts H. Hubert 
V_ Bryonp THE Roman EMPIRE 
Germany and the Roman Empire H. Hubert 
Persia | C’. Huart 
Ancient China and Central Asia M. Granet 
*A Thousand Years of the Tartars E. H. Parker 
India (Ed.) S. Lévt 
*The Heroic Age of India N. K. Sidhanta 
*Caste and Race in India G. S. Ghurye 
*The Life of Buddha as Legend and History E. H. Thomas ~ 


CHRISTIANITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES 


I ‘THe Oricins oF CHRISTIANITY 


Israel and Judaism A. Lods 
Jesus and the Birth of Christianity C. Gutgnebert 
The Formation of the Church C. Guignebert 
The Advance of Christianity C. Guignebert 
*History and Literature of Christianity P. de Labriolle 


II Tue Break-up oF THE EMPIRE 


The Dissolution of the Western Empire F. Lot 
The Eastern Empire C. Diehl 
Charlemagne L. Halphen 
The Collapse of the Carlovingian Empire F. Lot 
The Origins of the Slavs (Ed.) P. Boyer 
*Popular Life in the East Roman Empire N. Baynes 
*The Northern Invaders B. S. Phillpotts 
III Reticrous IMpERIALIsM 
Islam and Mahomet E. Doutté 
The Advance of Islam L. Barrau-Dtbigo 
Christendom and the Crusades P. Alphandéry 


The Organization of the Church R. Genestal 


IV Tue Arr or tHe Mippie AcEs 


The Art of the Middle Ages 
*The Papacy and the Arts 


V_ Reconstitution or Monarcuic Power 
The Foundation of Modern Monarchies 


The Growth of Public Administration 
The Organization of Law 


VI Socrat AND Economic Evo.tuTIon 


The Development of Rural and Town Life 
Maritime Trade and the Merchant Gilds 
*Life and Work in Medieval Europe 

*The Life of Women in Medieval Times 
*Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages 


VII IntextvtectuaLt Evo.ution 
Education in the Middle Ages 


P. Lorquet 
E. Strong 


C. Petit-Dutaillis 
E. Meynial 
E. Meyntal 


G. Bourgin 

P. Botssonnade 
P. Botssonnade 
Etleen Power 


(Ed.) A. P. Newton 


G. Huisman 


Philosophy in the Middle Ages E. Bréhier 
Science in the Middle Ages Abel Rey and P. Boutroux 
VIII From tue Mippiz Acrs to Mopern ‘Times 
Nations of Western and Central Europe P. Lorquet 
Russians, Byzantines, and Mongols (Ed.) P. Boyer 
The Birth of the Book G. Renaudet 
*The Grandeur and Decline of Spain C. Hughes Hartmann 
*The Influence of Scandinavia on England M. E. Seaton 
*The Philosophy of Capitalism T. E. Gregory 
*The Prelude to the Machine Age D. Russell 
*Life and Work in Modern Europe G. Renard 
A special group of volumes will be devoted to 
(1) Susyect Hisrortes 
*The History of Medicine C. G. Cumston 
*The History of Money T. E. Gregory 
*The History of Costume M. H1ler 
*The History of Witchcraft M. Summers 
*The History of ‘Taste F. L[saac 
*The History of Oriental Literature E. Powys Mathers 
*The History of Music Cecil Gray 
(2) Historica, ErHNoLocy 
*The Ethnology of India T. C. Hodson 
*The Peoples of Asia L.H. Dudley Buxton 
*The Threshold of the Pacific Cyl erue 


*The South American Indians 


Rafael Karsten 


In the Sections devoted to MODERN HISTORY the majority of ttles 
will be announced later. Many volumes are, however, in active preparation, 


and of these the first to be published will be 


*The Restoration Stage M. Summers 
*London Life in the Eighteenth Century $M. Dorothy George 
*China and Europe in the Eighteenth Century A. Reichwein 


The New York Times calls this series “‘ An adventure in letters and learning 
whose range is so audacious as to challenge the imagination to conceive it in its 
full implication. . . . A new type of vision on the whole perspective of 
historical science.” 


The Chicago Evening Post: ‘The scope is to be comprehensive and the 
performance so far has been brilliant. Mr. Knopf will have done the publican 
invaluable service by thus putting at its disposal an authoritative history of the’ 
world, entirely in English, each field covered by a man who has mastered it. 

The History of Civilization ought to prove a force not only in the spread 
of knowledge, but in the propagation of international good-will.” 


James T. Shotwell writes : “The History of Civilization, edited by Mr. Ogden 
of Magdalene College, Cambridge, marks a new stage in the History of History. 
Hitherto we have had co-operative surveys of sections of European History, but 
they have all suffered from limitations of space. The various contributors have 
been obliged by the editors to put into a chapter material which ordinarily would 
call for a whole volume. This great History leaves the author a real freedom 
to cover his subject adequately, and once this is granted, the chief editorial 
problem is to secure the outstanding authority in the particular subject. The 
list of authors in this series could hardly be bettered. Each writer can bring a 
distinct contribution apart from the data with which he deals ; each great phase 
of human evolution is presented here in a masterful survey and fits well into the 
general synthesis. 

“Turning from the special volumes to the work as a whole, one finds a con- 
ception of history which corresponds to the demands of those interested in the 
social and intellectual development of Europe, while alongside of it the political 
story still furnishes the traditional framework. It is a living picture of a vast 
movement, splendidly conceived and sure to be adequately executed.” 


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